# Climate Change
Planet Earth is beautiful, ancient, resilient to interstellar travel and perfectly suited for life. Yet, it is a dynamic system ever-changing both on the inside and on its surface.
Many of the changes that the planet experiences affect the long-term temperature and global weather conditions. These long-term changes we call **Climate Change**.
> **Climate change** refers to long-term shifts in temperatures and weather patterns. These shifts may be natural, such as through variations in the solar cycle. But since the 1800s, [human activities have been the main driver of climate change](https://www.ipcc.ch/2021/08/09/ar6-wg1-20210809-pr/), primarily due to burning fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas. [**United Nations**](https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/what-is-climate-change)
### Weather vs Climate
These two terms are often confused creating conflicting opinions and distorting the big picture. The main difference between the two terms is **time**. Weather happens over short periods of time, usually minutes to months and Climate is measured over long periods of time, usually over 30 years.
> The difference between weather and climate is a measure of time. Weather is what conditions of the atmosphere are over a short period of time, and climate is how the atmosphere "behaves" over relatively long periods of time. [**NASA**](https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/noaa-n/climate/climate_weather.html)
### IPCC Global temperature scenarios
The **Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)** is part of the **United Nations** and is in charge of investigating and advising on matters regarding the science related to climate change.
In their [2021: Summary for Policymakers. In: Climate Change 2021](https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/figures/summary-for-policymakers/figure-spm-8/) they presented the graphic below providing 5 different scenarios regarding the global surface temperature change relative to 1850-1900. Each **Scenario** presents an outcome determined by the level of **action** humanity embarks on to combat global warming.
### **Awareness to promote change**
Visualizing historic data helps in raising awareness towards not only the consequences of **inaction** regarding Climate Change, but it is also a way to present, analyze and promote different paths to **encourage** positive change, that may result in a future better world.
The projects we are creating in this guide are learning tools, but they can also be instruments of change.
🍎Teacher's Corner - resources
This is a collection of resources to further explore Climate Change
* Canada - [**Climate Change**](https://www.canada.ca/en/services/environment/weather/climatechange.html).
* United Nations - [**Climate Action**](https://www.un.org/en/climatechange).
* National Geographic - [**Climate Change**](https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/climate-change).
* NASA - [**Global Climate Change**](https://climate.nasa.gov/).
In the next section, we are introducing the technologies we will be working with. See you in **Our Tools**.
