Mother Nature and Global
Warning
--
Dr R Neerunjun Gopee
As
spreading wildfires force the evacuation of hundreds of
thousands of people in California, questions are again
raised about the impact of human development on the
environment. In fact, the title of an article about this
catastrophe is “Mother nature's revenge against human
development.”
Author
Andrew Gumbel writes: ‘This week's inferno, raging all the
way from the Santa Barbara foothills to the Mexican border,
has many immediate causes – notably, freakishly strong
desert winds that have acted like a blowtorch on a region
undergoing an unprecedented drought – but it is also part
of a long-standing clash between natural weather cycles and
the whims of human development. "This is mother
nature versus human nature," said Bill Patzert,
a renowned climatologist with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
"It's about too much development and too much fire
suppression building up fuel over the past 50 years... In
some ways this is the great war that will be fought here in
the 21st century." …The last time southern California
underwent a significant pattern of drought and fire, though,
it was the 1950s and the population of the region was no
more than three million. Now the region is home to 20
million people – many of whom are building houses on the
chaparral-covered hills and mountains where fire is part of
the natural cycle.’
It
is no secret that for years now scientists have drawn the
attention of world leaders to the relationship between human
activity and climate change, and sounded the alarm bell
about the consequences of the latter on the environment.
This has not prevented the difficulties that are still
coming in the way of a global consensus on the way forward
to tackle the problem, and the award of the Nobel Prize
jointly to Al Gore and the International Panel on Climate
Change may yet, hopefully, help overcome the resistance of
those who have so far been skeptical about the urgent need
for an updated Kyoto Protocol. It is worth noting that those
who will suffer most will be the people in underdeveloped
and developing countries, because they will not have
sufficient resources – technological, financial, human –
to cope with these profound changes. However, it is also a
fact that the population of the world will continue to grow,
and therefore “development” is inevitable. The latest
TIME magazine is a Special Issue which features some
“Heroes of the Environment” including scientists,
visionaries, activists, innovators and entrepreneurs who are
contributing towards making development more green, more
eco-friendly. It goes without saying that unless they get
widespread political support and that of peoples across the
world, their efforts may not be enough to save us.
For
this reason, it is worth recalling some of what has been
written regularly in recent times about climate change and
the environment, because unless we keep reminding ourselves
of the realities and the impending danger to our very
survival, we will continue in our mindless pattern of
development. A few extracts only will surely suffice:
‘A
glimpse of what lies ahead
The
sun beats down across northern Kenya's Rift Valley, turning
brown what was once green. Farmers and nomadic herders are
waiting with bated breath for the arrival of the
"short" rains - a few weeks of intense rainfall
that will ensure their crops grow and their cattle can eat.
The
short rains are due in the next month. Last year they never
came; large swaths of the Horn of Africa stayed brown. From
Ethiopia and Eritrea, through Somalia and down into
Tanzania, 11 million people were at risk of hunger.
This
devastating image of a drought-ravaged region offers a
glimpse of what lies ahead for large parts of the planet as
global warming takes hold.
In
Kenya, the animals died first. The nomadic herders' one
source of sustenance and income - their cattle - perished
with nothing to eat and nothing to drink. Bleached skeletons
of cows and goats littered the barren landscape.
The
number of food emergencies in Africa each year has almost
tripled since the 1980s. Across sub-Saharan Africa, one in
three people is under-nourished. Poor governance has played
a part.
Pastoralist
communities suffer most, rather than farmers and urban
dwellers. Nomadic herders will walk for weeks to find a
water hole or riverbed. As resources dwindle, fighting
between tribes over scarce resources becomes common.
One
of the most critical issues is under-investment in
pastoralist areas. Here, roads are rare, schools and
hospitals almost non-existent.’
‘Earth's
ecological debt crisis: mankind's 'borrowing' from nature
hits new record: Evidence
is mounting that rapid population growth and rising living
standards among the Earth's six billion inhabitants are
putting an intolerable strain on nature. The biggest problem
relating to the over-consumption of resources is climate
change, but its other effects include deforestation, falling
agricultural yields and overfishing.
Overfishing
is one of the most easily understood examples of the abuse
of nature. Catching too many fish has left species that were
once common, such as cod in the North Sea and bluefin tuna
in the Mediterranean, struggling to survive.
Although
it is possible to make ever-increasing catches for a while,
eventually only small, juvenile fish are left, and stocks
become unviable. Similarly, emissions of greenhouse gases
are rising, exacerbated by the growth of China and India,
but the climate is poised to wreak its revenge. Already
polar ice caps are melting at a rate that is startling
scientists, and examples of extreme weather, such as
Hurricane Katrina, which devastated New Orleans in August
last year, are being attributed to global climate change. In
February, when he was Defence Secretary, John Reid revealed
that British military planners were already preparing for
conflicts arising from the scramble for resources in 20 to
30 years' time.
Outlining
the impact of global warming, he said: "Impacts such as
flooding, melting permafrost and desertification could lead
to loss of agricultural land, poisoning of water supplies
and destruction of economic infrastructure."
And:
‘With world temperatures on course to rise by two to three
degrees in 50 years, rainfall could be catastrophically
reduced in some of the world's poorest countries, while
others grapple with floods from melting glaciers. The result
could be the largest migration of refugees in history.
These
problems will be "difficult or impossible to
reverse" unless the world acts quickly.’, Sir
Nicholas will warn, in a 700-page report that is expected to
transform world attitudes to climate change. It adds:
"Our actions over the coming few decades could create
risks of major disruption to economic and social activity,
later in this century and in the next, on a scale similar to
those associated with the great wars and the economic
depression of the first half of the 20th century." ’
Further:
‘The blame game goes like this. Green groups blame the
politicians. Politicians (quietly) blame the public for not
being ready for the change needed. The public blame
politicians, and often big businesses too. It is much more
serious than that, however. This is a dramatic failure of
the political system itself.
The
current decision-making culture of the political system and
the international community is incapable of delivering
solutions. We haven't done this before. Globally diplomats
have never agreed on dramatic collective action to prevent a
crisis of this kind. We went through the Second World War
before the creation of the United Nations.’
But:
‘This is a profound challenge for this generation of
politicians. We need leaders with the courage to take action
today, and the humility to open up our politics to give us
real choices on action tomorrow. But it's an even bigger
challenge for people like me. The public may not opt for the
radical action we believe is necessary. But let's expose the
issues and the choices. If we fail, those who will suffer
from the resulting climate chaos will be able to see which
side their predecessors were on.
As
Bertrand Russell wrote in 1961 on behalf of the 12 most
eminent scientists in the world: "There lies before us,
if we choose, continual progress in happiness, knowledge and
wisdom. Shall we, instead, choose death, because we cannot
forget our quarrels? We appeal as human beings, to human
beings: Remember your humanity, and forget the rest. If you
can do so, the way lies open to a new Paradise: if you
cannot, there lies before you the risk of universal
death."
The
G8 was a slap-in-the-face reminder that we cannot leave it
up to our leaders to choose the sane path. We have to force
them through mass democratic movements like Greenpeace and a
reclaimed Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. Perhaps we will
fail. Perhaps humanity is such an irrational, poorly evolved
species that we cannot overcome our tribalism and mutual
suspicions and act in our own self-defence. But when the
alternatives are a barren world that is six degrees warmer
or a freezing nuclear winter, we ought to find out - and
fast.’
We
have surely been warned enough…
RN
Gopee
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