Systems: All of the smaller systems that make up the earth (like the water system, rock system, and atmosphere system) contribute to making the earth hospitable for all life.
A system is happening when the whole of something is greater than the sum of its parts. Our planet is a system made up of countless smaller systems. All of these smaller systems, like the water system, rock system, and atmosphere system, contribute to making the earth hospitable to all life. The climate change problem centers on the fact that human actions are changing the smaller systems that make up the earth (for example, by adding greenhouse gasses to the atmosphere) which is changing the whole earth’s system in ways that humans have never done before. Most systems in nature tend to stay balanced, but because everything is connected, seemingly small changes can add up and cause larger changes in many different systems.