It seems that we are a little too inspired by the 3 monkeys that Mahatma Gandhi popularized in India. Instead of debating about the future of human race, we are actually debating the nationalism of a fellow PhD student and the Prime Minister of India.
While all this was flooding our TV sets and mobile phones, we collectively blinded ourselves and didn’t speak and didn’t want to hear the fact that Global Warming is here.
It is not a problem for our future generations to tackle. It is something that is happening right now, and we have closed all our senses like the ostrich digging its head in the mud in broad daylight and assuming it is night.
The temperature of the entire Northern Hemisphere rose two degrees Celsius above ‘normal’. Even if the temperature shot up for few hours, the situation is alarming as the developed countries across the Northern Hemisphere have set up norms so that this ‘normal’ is not achieved but sadly we have.
Recently there was report that February, 2016 was recorded as the hottest month in the recoded human history. And before that the reports that flooded was 2015 was the hottest year in the recorded history. The phenomenon El Nino is to be blamed for the sudden shoot up in the temperature. The situation couldn’t be any more alarming.
A major chunk of Great Barrier Reef in Australia is permanently destroyed due to climate change. In the South Pacific, the highest wind speeds ever measured happened last month when Tropical Cyclone Winston crashed into Fiji. Financially speaking the storm wiped out almost 10% of the country’s GDP.
The troubles hit the Americas when storm Patricia hit the Pacific coast of Mexico. This was followed by the wide spread of Zika Virus. Adding to the world wide misery was Syrian crunch in the Middle East where the country is going through the deepest droughts of its lifetime.
While the major part of our generation is busy building their life, a life of debt and more debts, there are some of us who do take out time to popularize the travesty Global Warming is. Natalie Portman, Cate Blanchett, Meryl Streep and Emma Thompson are among the female brigade from Hollywood who are fighting to spread the word about Global Warming and Climate Change.
There is a Hollywood actor named Leonardo DiCaprio. After winning his maiden Oscar award the actor was so sloshed that at the after party he forgot to pick his trophy. But even being so sloshed he didn’t forget the real problem we, humans, are facing collectively. In Leo's Oscar winning speech he said, ‘Climate Change is Real! And it is happening right now. It is the most urgent threat facing our entire species.’
But while there are people who are coming out to make real changes, there are authorities who are literally sitting and planning to do nothing. Coal extraction and exploitation of oil and gas is on it life time high. In May campaigners around the world will meet on the world’s biggest carbon deposits: the coal mines of Australia, the tarsands of Canada, the gasfields of Russia. And they will engage in peaceful civil disobedience, an effort to simply say: no.
Not many may remember but the most hauntingly beautiful thing was a clear sky in Delhi during the night time back in the 90s. Looking up in the sky and seeing various constellations used to be a major pass time, a practical learning experience. And that is something which our coming generation may never experience. If the current pace of climate exploitation keeps on happening, there might not be any future generation to experience life. Let’s not make it a reality, the time to fight is now!
This article is inspired by an article published in BostonGlobe.com.
Image Credits in chronological order
Image 1 Credit: climatechange.mit.edu
Image 2 Credit: washingtonpost.com
Image 3 Credit: relevantmediagroup.com
Image 4 Credit: glacierkieranmercier.files.wordpress.com
Image 5 Credit: media1.fdncms.com
