‘Climate change has become such a familiar term that we tend to read past it—it’s part of our mental furniture, like urban sprawl or gun violence. So, let’s remember exactly what we’ve been up to, because it should fill us with awe; it’s by far the biggest thing humans have ever done. Those of us in the fossil fuel-consuming classes have, over the last 200 years, dug up immense quantities of coal and gas and oil, and burned them: in car motors, basement furnaces, power plants, steel mills. When we burn them, the carbon atoms combine with oxygen atoms in the air to produce carbon dioxide. The molecular structure of carbon dioxide traps heat that would otherwise have radiated back out to space. We have, in other words, changed the energy balance of our planet, the amount of the sun’s heat that is returned to space.’

Source: It’s Not Coming, It’s Here: Bill McKibben on Our New Climate Reality | Literary Hub