Global warming is a problem that needs to be solved. You’ve probably heard that a lot, right? We’ve all heard so much about ‘climate change,’ ‘global warming,’ and how it’s affecting our environment, yet not everyone takes action to reduce its effects. Nonetheless, global warming is a much greater problem than what many people imagine.

Because we humans now rely so heavily on machines like cars and factories, those machines must work harder than ever before. Most machines mainly run on fossil fuels like coal, that create greenhouse gas emissions when burned. Greenhouse gases are particles that absorb the sun’s heat, trapping it in the Earth’s atmosphere and preventing it from escaping in a process called the greenhouse effect. Just the right amount of these gases is helpful to supporting life and keeping us warm, but too much can have drastic effects on the environment.

While there are many different types of greenhouse gases, the most common one is carbon dioxide (CO₂), which, according to an article by National Geographic, makes up over 80% of Earth’s greenhouse gases.

The piece goes on to state that in the years following the Industrial Revolution (generally speaking, 1760 to 1840), which was the transition from creating items by hand to operating using machines, the atmosphere consisted of only 0.028% carbon dioxide, but, due to greenhouse gas emissions, we’ve raised that to 0.04%, which is a nearly 40% increase! Normally, greenhouse gases would only trap 50% of the sun’s rays and reflect the rest into space, but now approximately 70% of those rays are trapped in the Earth’s atmosphere. According to the National Archives, humans have increased the temperature by one degree Fahrenheit in the last century due to that increasing amount of heat absorption from the greenhouse gases, and over two degrees since the Industrial Revolution. Additionally, ten out of the last thirteen years were the warmest recorded in history.

The effects of global warming are not felt as strongly near the equator because even in winter, it’s still 90°F outside. However, at the poles, any rise in temperature is huge. A one-degree rise from -32°F (the freezing point of water) to -31°F means it is no longer cold enough for ice to form. This means that the poles receive lots of melting in sea ice due to the warming of our planet. According to NASA’s satellite images, Antarctica lost 36 cubic miles of ice between 2002 and 2005, and on average Earth loses four hundred billion tons of ice from glaciers each year. This means that many animals that make temporary or permanent homes on ice floes are inconvenienced at best.

This melting also causes sea levels to rise. In the past century, ocean levels have risen 6.7 inches, but in the last decade that number has nearly doubled. On average, the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) says sea levels rise 0.14 inches per year, and that in the next 25 years sea levels will have risen about 0.3 meters. If global warming rates continue like what is happening now, low-elevation islands like the Maldives (1.3 meters above sea level) will be nonexistent in the next century.

Another consequence of our actions is ocean acidification, which is a rise in the amount of acids in the ocean as a direct result of carbon dioxide reacting to salt water. Since the late 1800s, ocean surface acidification has increased by 30%. This affects and bleaches calcifying species like coral and clams, among others, and shakes the entire ocean food web.

But don’t worry: there’s still hope! According to satellite images, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increases dramatically in the springtime, when farmers plow their fields for crops, because the carbon in the ground is released into the air. However, during the summer, when those crops thrive and flourish, the amount of carbon dioxide lessens. What does this mean? It means plants are sucking up all that carbon dioxide we’re letting out into the air, and that our planet might not be on a collision course with the consequences of our actions.

This means you can help! Yes, you! You make up less than 0.000000001% of the total population on Earth, but you can help reverse the effects of climate change. You don’t have to do something huge, like travel around the world planting trees or switching to solar power. In fact, actions that matter the most are small things that can be done by many people; for example, turning off the lights when you’re not using them, saving water, and recycling.

Is it too late to reverse the effects of global warming? Unfortunately, yes. We can’t change what we did in the past, but any action we take now can help to avoid consequences that would otherwise last forever in the future, like the extinction of important animal species, an acidic ocean, and sea level rise.