Most people have heard of climate change — Greta Thunberg, global warming, carbon dioxide — but do you know what it really is?

The official dictionary definition is, ‘A global or regional long-term change in climate patterns’. To put that more clearly, climate change is the fact that we humans release carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide (collectively known as greenhouse gases) into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels such as coal and oil. This causes all the heat from the Sun to travel towards us as usual, however, when it reaches the greenhouse-gas-polluted atmosphere it is trapped. This is known as the greenhouse effect. All this warmth sealed inside the atmosphere heats up the planet as well, in a phenomenon known as global warming, leading ice to melting and sea levels rising, among lots of other problems. There are many knock-on effects of climate change, and that is what makes it such a crucial issue to try and tackle.

If you are thinking, ‘What can I do?’, then you wouldn’t be the only one. But there are so many answers out there to choose from, and here are my favourite 5:

1. Eat less meat. Each of the 1.5 billion cattle on the planet can release up to 500 litres of methane a day through farts and burps!

2. Have less baths and shorter showers. This saves water, and also the energy used to heat it.

3. Use your devices less. This may seem a controversial one, but if you fully drained and recharged your phone everyday, then over the course of a year you would have to feed it about 2,000 watt hours, or 2kWh.

4. Look after wild spaces near you. Feed the birds, let nature thrive and NEVER litter.

5. Get your voice heard. Write to your local MP, go to a protest or stick posters around your school — it all counts.

To quote inspirational climate warrior Greta Thunberg, ‘No one is too small to make a difference.’ And she couldn’t be more right. As the old saying goes, ‘If not now, when? If not me, who?’ And now it’s more important than ever to take action to preserve our future. So go out there and make the change — by something as large as attending a protest or as seemingly insignificant as turning your phone off. Whatever it is, make sure it’s right for you — then do it!