Well... the earth kind of works like a greenhouse

Rays from the sun come and enter Earth’s thin atmosphere. The rays get absorbed in the surface of our planet, and then generate new rays, called infrared rays.

When these infrared rays try to go back into space, they get trapped in the atmosphere, and they come back down to earth again.

The reason the rays bounce back is because our atmosphere is filled with greenhouse gasses, like carbon dioxide. These gasses trap the rays inside the earth, making us hotter.

This cycle is perfect. It keeps us at the perfect temperature to sustain life: 59°Fahrenheit.

But that was before humans were ever on this planet.

Since humans have been here, the planet has gotten one degree warmer...

We’ve been adding extra greenhouse gasses to the atmosphere because we’re burning fossil fuels like coal and oil.

All this extra CO2 is thickening our atmosphere, and more infrared rays are getting trapped inside.

Our earth is in such a delicate balance, the this one degree change could have a domino effect on earth.

A hotter average temperature would lead to extreme catastrophes, like hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, and species extinction.