The Greens trains Earth Rangers and Students of the University of Bamenda about Climate Change

Tuesday 07 August 2018 at 11:00AM at the Conference Hall of the Regional Delegation of Environment, Protection of Nature and Sustainable Development, Ngalim Franklin (Mr. Green), Founder/Executive Director of The Greens trained 23 Earth Rangers and students of the University of Bamenda on internship at the Regional Delegation about Climate Change

The training started with a word of welcome from Mr. Green and this was followed by self introduction of the different participants.

Self introductions was followed by a presentation of the lesson objectives and the definition of key terms such as Climate change, Weather, Global Warming, Green House Gases, etc.

The main goal of the training was to examine;

• The science of how climate change occurs, including the differences between climate and weather, greenhouse gases and how scientists determine that the planet is getting hotter.
• The impacts of climate change, especially in the areas of migration, rainfall-dependent agriculture, extreme weather conditions, and the intensification of illnesses.
• The practical and innovative solutions to address the causes of climate change while meeting the needs of the world including solar, wind, and hydroelectric power, as well as the importance of preserving and maintaining forests.

What is the difference between Weather and Climate?

When we talk about climate, we are not referring to weather. They mean two different things. Weather reflects short-term conditions in the atmosphere. Climate, on the other hand, refers to the average temperatures and precipitation rates over an extended period of time.

Climate change is a change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns when that change lasts for an extended period of time (i.e., decades to millions of years).

Evidences of Climate Change

We studied the different evidences of climate change that include

• Global Temperature Rice
• Warming Oceans
• Shrinking ice
• Glacier retreat
• Decreased snow cover
• Sea level rise
• Declining Arctic sea ice
• Extreme weather events
• Ocean acidification
• Increase in Carbon dioxide and Green House Gases

But what is causing the climate to change?

The training drilled the students on the natural and anthropogenic causes of Climate Change and explained clearly how they are contributing to the climate change.
It's clear that our activities are releasing huge quantities of Green House Gases (GHGs) to the atmosphere, trapping more of the longwave radiation for longer periods and forcing the surface temperature to rise. If we focus on the portion of warming caused by the natural gases released by our activities, carbon dioxide is responsible for 72 percent of the warming, methane for 18 percent, and nitrous oxide for 9 percent.

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Its very important for us to know that our actions have a direct impact on our climate and some of our activities that greatly accelerate climate change include deforestation, over grazing and heavy meat consumption, poor waste management, use of chemical fertilizers and unsustainable agricultural practices, etc.

The Impacts of Climate Change

We watched a series of videos that demonstrate how climate change is impacting millions of people accross Africa and the world then and a discussion session during which we tried to answer the following questions

• How is your community impacted by climate change?
• What daily habits can you undertake to reduce climate change?
• Describe what others have done in your community to reduce climate change. Have they been successful? Why or why not.
• Predict what would happen to your community if climate change continues.

Global Impacts of Climate Change Image Source

The impacts of climate change on human health: Source

Combating Climate Change

We took out time to learn about what young people can do to fight climate change. By the end of the training, we all pledged to eat less meat, walk or bicycle more, plant trees in our homes and communities, buy organic and locally grown food, trim our waste, become more energy efficient, change our parents three stone fire place to improved cook stoves, educate more people about climate change and do more research and be informed about climate change.

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