Time to change: It’s Climate Change

Can you guess when was the very first time that made the world leaders of various nations to come together, sit under one roof, forgetting all the differences between them, sort of united the world? Can you guess it? It was ‘terrorism’! That it was our dire threat of terrorism that made all the nations unite. Yet there was another issue that also had the concern to pull all the world leaders together- ‘World Hunger and Poverty’. Nobody can forget the UN Millennium Declaration ‘to combat global hunger and poverty’ in 2000, signed by 191 nations around the world.
Finally, there was another issue that similarly unified the nation - ‘Global Warming and Climate Change’. It is important to realize that climate change does have a prominent impact on lives of everyone on this earth. It is not something that is happening in some other country or in some remote village. This, ‘Climate Change’, is happening right above our heads and shoulders and all around us. That is worth worrying.It is no wonder Mr.Al Gore’s Oscar-winning documentary, ‘An Inconvenient Truth’, is christened the scariest movie of the decade. The work of International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says it all - scientific discoveries linking human activities and climate change. For their work, Nobel Peace prize was awarded to Mr.Al Gore and the IPCC in 2007.
One of the more interesting stories that I heard is that the polar bears are drowning! Global warming has caused the melting of polar ice caps and the ice land mass are fast melting away, the polar bears who are usually good swimmers are finding no land to get back. So getting tired of it, they drown. That’s terrible!Of all things said and done, I believe that each and everyone of us should realize that climate change is having its effect on earth’s ecosystem. It seems that our mindless pursuit of ‘growth’, ignorant of its impact on the environment have created a monster out of Mother Earth. We have gone so far compromising environmental sustainability for economic growth. Our craze for materialistic pleasures and our unlimited desires armed with deadly weapon of technology, is slowly consuming the very home that harbors life.During this moment, I am reminded of the words of Mahatma Gandhi, ‘Nature can satisfy our needs, not our greed’ which couldn’t be more true. After all Gandhi could be right, you know!But an eternal optimist, I find hope! I like the words of this environmentalists who said, ‘Either we can brood over our past misdoings or we can find this as an opportunity to re-do, re-new ourselves, in finding better ways of doing what we have been doing so far.’For there has been plethora of ideas for addressing the climate change issue - from adopting natural way of agriculture to the birth of concepts like ‘slow food’ (remember its rival sibling – fast food). Now we are talking about capitalizing renewable sources of energy like wind, solar, bioenergy. There is a grassroots movement among the world community to move towards more eco-friendly ways of living. Every hotel in the Belgium is equipped with double gear flush system in the bathrooms to control the wastage of water, I read of Thomas Friedman write in an article. We are talking about re-designing our homes with the concept of ‘green building’. There is a growing world consciousness and environmental sensitivity, uniting the people around the world. We are becoming brothers and sisters again!
That is the change that we need – the change that could beat the climate change!