Blog Action Day - By the Way, What IS 'Climate Change?' .....

Today is Blog Action Day, an annual event held every October 15 that unites the world’s bloggers in posting about the same issue on the same day with the aim of sparking discussion around an issue of global importance. Blog Action Day 2009 will be one of the largest-ever social change events on the web. The focus this year is on Climate Change.

I probably should have made this my first post of the day, but ... "What is 'climate change' anyway?

A good online starting-point for research is this post on wikipedia, which tells us, "climate change is a change in the statistical distribution of weather over periods of time that range from decades to millions of years. It can be a change in the average weather or a change in the distribution of weather events around an average (for example, greater or fewer extreme weather events). Climate change may be limited to a specific region, or may occur across the whole Earth."

That same wikipedia post goes on to state - and this is particularly important in the current debate over climate change - "In recent usage, especially in the context of environmental policy, climate change usually refers to changes in modern climate (see global warming)."

Another online source - one of my favorites, really - is the NASA Climate Change website.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Climate Change site "offers comprehensive information on the issue of climate change in a way that is accessible and meaningful to all parts of society – communities, individuals, business, states and localities, and governments."

The EPA also has a Climate Change Website for Kids ... I know, I know - it's another example of President Obama and the government trying to indoctrinate your kids ... but the site is interesting and informative, nonetheless. And it may be a little more broad-minded than you expect, when it tells visitors, "Earth has warmed by about 1ºF over the past 100 years. But why? And how? Well, scientists are not exactly sure. The Earth could be getting warmer on its own, but many of the world's leading climate scientists think that things people do are helping to make the Earth warmer."

And if you'd rather crunch numbers than mince words when discussing climate change, then energyliteracy.com might be the website for you.

True, there are A LOT of sites out there that address the topic of climate change. This is just a sampling ... go surfing, and find some that suit you.

There are a lot of videos, too. Here's one from naturalist and broadcaster, David Attenborough ...


Or, you could go with this one from Futurama...