The Catholic University of America: Climate Change

Climate change
Name
The Catholic University of America
Date
Part one
Climate change refers to the significant shift in climate patterns caused by human activities, which affect the local and global climates. The Oxford English Dictionary describes Climate change  as , “an alteration in the regional or global climate; esp. the change in global climate patterns increasingly apparent from the mid to late 20th century onwards and attributed largely to the increased levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide produced by the use of fossil fuels.” One of the problems with my description is that the variability in climate is attributed to human interference only and there is no mention whether the changes are short term or long-term. The OED definition emphasizes carbon dioxide emissions as the main cause of climate change, leaving out other anthropogenic emissions.
Part two
Climate changes then are the changes in climate patterns mainly resulting from human activities and anthropogenic emissions, but to also to a less extent natural causes, as evidenced by global warming and the acceleration of climate change since the 20th century. Scientists have also identified the effects of climate change and used scientific evidence to back up their claims on climates. However, it is not for the scientists alone to determine how climate change affects people’s lives if they rely too much on predictions. In any case, scientists have not been able to quantify the effect of greenhouse gases, because they use prediction models and make assumptions on how human activities have influenced climate change.
The new definition of climate change is supper than the previous two, since the alterations in climate patterns occur over extended period of time, the main effect of anthropogenic emissions since the 20th century. According to Burkett (2015), what some people hold as the truth is not what she considers the truth. In othe...