MEET THESUPERVILLAIN
Wildfires raging across Canada and Greece. Flooding in the western United States. A heat wave launching temperatures to 100° Fahrenheit (38° Celsius) in Siberia. Permafrost melting, turning solid ground into a mushy mess. Tropical storms forming, one after the other, pummeling cities on land again and again. A massive storm called a derecho flattening crops and buildings across the middle of the country.
And that was just 2023.
Whoa—are we under attack? What supervillain could possibly be causing so much damage?
Meet climate change. It’s not a living, breathing supervillain, but it acts like one just the same. Every year, the effects of climate change get worse. Record-setting natural disasters happen more often. More land burns. More rain falls—or none at all. Temperatures soar to new heights. Stronger storms kick up more damaging winds.
Sounds like it’s time to call in some superheroes! What heroes, you ask? You. Me. Anyone who cares about the planet we live on. Our voices and our actions are our superpowers. We can change the world when we try.
We also need to call on a special group of heroes. They’re already out there in the wild, working to keep our climate in check, and we need their help. Who are these climate heroes?
GREAT WHALES—Fighting climate change with massive “poo-nados”!
SEA OTTERS—Fuzzy cuteness
FOREST ELEPHANTS— Strengthening forests by trampling trees!
ECHIDNAS—Burying climate change with mighty claws!
We need these heroes to amp up their activities to help us win this fight.
Where did climate change come from? Scientists around the world agree: It was created by people. Not on purpose! But just about everything we do releases carbon into the air. Even though climate change is our nemesis, carbon is really at work here. It’s like the puppet master, pulling the strings, causing the planet to warm. If we want to tackle climate change, we have to zero in on carbon.
WHAT’S CARBON’S DEAL ANYWAY?
Carbon is one of the 118 elements scientists have identified. But it isn’t just any old element. It’s the stuff of coal—and diamond. We burn it for heat and electricity. And it’s in every bite of food we eat. Carbon is the building block of all living things, including you.
Why carbon? It plays nice with other elements. It likes to form chemical bonds and it’s not picky about which elements it joins. That versatility allows it to make up the backbone of all kinds of living (and nonliving) things.
Carbon is also in Earth’s crust, its oceans, and its atmosphere. That last one is where it’s causing problems. Carbon is the heart of two greenhouse gases: carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4). When these gases enter our atmosphere, they trap the sun’s heat close to Earth. It’s kind of like how a blanket traps your body heat, keeping you warm at night. Or how glass on a car or greenhouse traps heat inside on a sunny day.
Heat causes water molecules to evaporate from the ocean’s surface. They gather in the air to form clouds.
Nitrogen (N) and carbon dioxide (CO2) move in the other direction, absorbed from the air by water.
Greenhouse gases (Get it? They trap heat like a greenhouse?) are a good thing—to a certain extent. Without them, Earth would be a ball of ice. It’s thanks to these greenhouse gases that we not only have liquid water, but have life on this planet at all.
But too much of a good thing is NEVER good. People’s actions have been adding more and more greenhouse gases to our atmosphere. It’s like piling on the blankets until you’re just … too … HOT! In the same way, our planet is getting too warm. And that spells trouble for everything, from the tiniest ocean dwellers to the tallest plants to every person on the planet and everything in between.
One solution is to find ways to lock that carbon away. Whether it’s deep in the ocean, underground, or in forests on land, taking carbon out of the atmosphere can help us get climate change under control. That’s where our climate heroes come in.
UNSUNG HEROES
Before we get to our first animal hero, we should take a peek at the unsung heroes of climate change. These heroes aren’t the kind of organisms you think about much—if at all. Yet they’re always there in the background, sucking carbon out of the atmosphere and turning it into something new. As you will see, our superheroes work with these unsung heroes to fight climate change.
Who are these mysterious climate heroes? Plants, algae, and cyanobacteria. If you were to take a stroll to a pond or lake to observe them, they wouldn’t seem to do much. But these heroes share a climate-changing superpower: photosynthesis. Without them, carbon would stay in the atmosphere, warming the planet and wreaking havoc. Their photosynthesis is the first step in a chain reaction to stop climate change.
Here’s how it works:
Algae and plants use photosynthesis to make their own food. Plants need food, too! But algae and plants are incredible because they make their own food. As if that’s not enough? They make food from air.
Plants use carbon dioxide and water to make sugar with help from sunlight. They don’t need the leftover oxygen, so they release it into the air (lucky for us—we need it to breathe!).
Photosynthesis creates sugar. To be clear, this isn’t like the sugary cereal you might eat for breakfast—though that sugar also came from plants, probably sugar cane or sugar beets. Sugar is the base of all carbohydrates, including starch and fiber. And it all comes from plants. Photosynthesis is a kind of magic, er … science, called chemistry. And it provides food for (almost) every living thing on the planet.
But that’s not all! Photosynthesis doesn’t just turn carbon dioxide into sugar. The process also kicks out extra oxygen—the very thing we need to breathe. (Fun fact: Trees get a lot of credit for releasing oxygen, but more than half of the oxygen you breathe comes from the ocean.) Trees provide food and shelter for animals of all kinds, including people. They shade us on hot days and protect us from strong winds. We use their lumber to build homes and furniture.
Organisms of all kinds do “jobs” that benefit us. It’s easy to overlook those ecosystem services. But they are vitally important for us—and all life on Earth.
Text copyright © 2024 by Alison Pearce Stevens
Illustrations copyright © 2024 by Jason Ford
