Climate change: those are two words that occasionally get passed around but no one really ever takes seriously. Global warming has been affecting our planet since the start of the 20th century and most shrug it off.

With the start of 2018, we bring a lot of climatic troubles with us. Especially here at home, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources reports that climate change has caused issues such as increased precipitation, higher temperatures and agricultural challenges.

Those problems are only at the tip of the ever fast-melting iceberg, and everyone is feeling the effects of climate change globally, not just Iowa. Nasa.gov reports that most climate scientists agree the main cause of the current global warming trend is human expansion of the “greenhouse effect.”

The “greenhouse effect” is warming that results when the atmosphere traps heat radiating from Earth toward space. Certain gases in the atmosphere block heat from escaping and some of these gases are long-lived and remain semi permanently in the atmosphere.

The biggest problem gas is carbon dioxide, a gas that we as humans produce by breathing, deforestation , land use changes, and burning fossil fuels. Nasa. gov also reports that human have increased atmospheric  CO2 concentration by more than a third since the Industrial Revolution began.

Carbon dioxide isn’t the only problematic gas but it’s the most prevalent, followed by methane, and nitrous oxide. With our president leaving the Paris Climate Accord, it makes you wonder what our plan is.

As individuals in an ever fast growing world, we all need to  take action by reducing our personal carbon emissions, but to fully address the threat of global warming, we must demand action from our elected leaders to support and implement a set of comprehensive  climate solutions.