Climate change. Most people are probably familiar with the term but don’t know entirely what it is about. Climate change is basically summed up as a change from normal climate patterns, which many scientists have been attributed to the excessive use of fossil fuel emissions. Yet many still deny that climate change truly does exists and affects everyone in some form here on Earth, despite all the overwhelming evidence to prove otherwise.

For instance, if you look back at all the hurricanes that have occurred within the past two months you can see that the world’s temperatures have warmed significantly from prior years. These raised temperatures have caused the oceans to also be warmer than normal and have become the perfect condition for all the strong and successive hurricanes we have had in the Atlantic Ocean this hurricane season cycle. The oceans have become so much warmer that hurricanes have been able to reach Ireland and the western United Kingdom. With the category three hurricane Ophelia hitting the coast of Ireland, it has been recorded as the northernmost hurricane to ever occur and to say this is a coincidence is to be narrow minded. Even hurricane Irma was a phenomenon in itself for being the strongest hurricane to form as far east of the Atlantic ocean as it did.

Another great example of how climate change really does exist is the more intensified Californian wildfires that occurred earlier in the month of October. This is because higher global temperatures raise the probability of a wildfire igniting, and with 16 of the 17 warmest years ever recorded all occurring after 2001 it’s not really a huge surprise to see that the wildfire season for California has increased from 138 days to 222 days of the year.  

Though many will argue that these are simply weather irregularities that mean nothing in the grand scheme of things, you just can’t ignore all the overwhelming evidence that the ocean temperatures have risen since the early 20th century. Even one degree higher in ocean temperatures due to climate change through the emission of fossil fuels can be volatile for Earth.

With all these examples in mind and all the evidence based on climate tracking records it is foolish to say that climate change is just a theory. It is occurring around us in our everyday lives, with storms becoming stronger and more prevalent and wildfire season for California extending there is really no way to fight for the argument that climate change is not affecting our society.