Climate Change : A reminder of why it's so important to Act On Climate

Hello ladies and gentlemen, here is a reminder of why we do this and why it's everyone's fight.

A lesson on history and current affairs:

Of late, there have been a lot of misinformation and ambiguity over climate change. Climate change has become some sort of buzzword for the large majority but for the minority who deny reality, they try to water and minimize its strength, the way it hits you in the face with its sheer unrepentant tenacity. It’s persistent, this thing called climate change. It is not going away tomorrow. Not even for the holidays. It’s here to see if it can assert itself, build a house, demarcate some land and have it certified as property belonging to global warming, as the law agrees.

So what do we do, we the life that has colonized the Earth and declared it our habitation? Where do we go? Are we willing to cede some of ours to this brash neighbor who takes all without asking? Obviously it won’t ask nicely and we can’t reply with force because hey, we went into the lion’s den with a stick from the fire. So now the lion is here, searching us out, mad as the devil’s abode.

We played with nature, tried to alter its systems, all in greed, to satisfy our all-important needs. And so Mother Nature replied and now she wants our coastal cities, our beaches and waterfront property. She doesn’t forgive our lands either, she wants to drink their moisture, leave them bare. She speaks whenever, blowing in fiery typhoons and rendering our villages a waste.

She is furious, but like petulant children we do not care, we still pout because after all, what is nature? She will yield to us, until she doesn’t. We will continue with our offensive activities until like the Mother she is, she stretches out her hand and catches every single one of us, and so we will try to escape but fail, when the heat becomes too much and our lands dry up, the ice melts and water swallows up land. We will try to save a planet that is already in the violent iron grip of a changing climate and it will be futile, like taking a pebble to sturdy wall.

On that day, the economy will matter not. Not when dangerous diseases migrate to and become prevalent in new areas. Not when the increasingly fewer resources we have are already a source of conflict. We fight over the few remaining lakes and dried up rivers. Tell me, when your home is destroyed by flash floods or rising waters or unending drought, when the actual economy of your town is destroyed because well, where are the rains? What you going to do?

 What about  when wildfires burn entire forests? Or when thirst overpowers?

History

History will bury you in ignominy. You knew but you denied. And so the very thing you did not acknowledge destroyed the very thing you chose over it.

Common sense and indeed all good practice demand that, if you truly love something, then you must protect it. If the economy is so precious, and truly it is; development is the firepower of nations; then protect it. Do the right thing by it, choose to grow it, drop fossil fuels, and embrace a low carbon pathway. 

No point flogging a dead horse, and they are a woebegone lot they who are too scared to venture out and explore the new.

We all thrive on growth. Fossil fuels belong to the past. They did their time. And it is gone. Their time is done. Renewables are the energy of the future. We cannot be so stuck in static, love being planted in our place, love our comfort zone so much that we refuse to move forward.

Great things belong to those who dare believe and go in search of the future. And the future begins now. There is no beating, no defeating an idea whose time has come. Ain’t nothing more powerful than that.

But climate change, is not just an idea. It is reality. For island nations. For developing nations. For African nations. All are threatened by climate change. For us, the most affected, climate change is not a myth, it is the reality before our eyes, when the rains fail for long drawn out consecutive months. It is a matter of life and death,

Of survival.

We cannot just sit by and watch our animals die. That means my children won’t go to school. The failed harvest  means there’s no food next month and well the missus won’t like that. And why is it so hot nowadays? Someone fell seriously sick, heat stroke they said.

We are not just going to sit by and watch our countries being turned to deserts and our economies sunk in the sand. No way. No.

Sticks into the fire

How can you as a person put sticks into the same fire that’s roasting you? Bring the pot to a boil? It doesn’t augur well.

I think that we as the leading citizens of planet Earth have to do right by both our motherland and the other species that inhabit this world. We cannot destroy everyone else for the sake of just one.

Climate change is a science. And facts don’t lie. Fossil fuels are burnt to produce energy but in the process release carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide acts as a blanket, allowing solar radiation to reach the earth but absorbing the heat leaving Earth. As a result, the atmosphere warms up and that affects weather patterns everywhere. The globe warms. Climate changes.

Lives are affected.

Cutting down forests and general destruction of vegetation means that there is less and less greenery to absorb Carbon dioxide. So we destroy even the little protection we had.

I think that it is imperative that everyone takes responsibility for what they have done. Climate change is a global threat. It affects everyone. To borrow from Winston Churchill,  it is folly to feed the crocodile hoping that it eats you last.

Some countries are more vulnerable than others. Some are more affected. But in the hot bitter end, everyone will pay. No one will escape. Unless you head to Mars.

To put it plainly, we need cooperation at every level of society. Everyone needs to chime in, play a role. Or more importantly, let’s raise a generation that blazes the trail, turns away from the norm, leads the way. An intelligent conscientious generation that will fight for its survival and that of others.

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To sum it up, someone very wise said : economic sustainability must be premised on ecological sustainability.

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There is no other way.

Be the change you want to see.

Full steam ahead!!!!!!