The nemesis of mankind

Thanks to Hollywood particularly and the movie industry in general, we grew up thinking that the greatest threat to the continued existence of mankind was some imaginary extra terrestrial invaders who are hell bent on destroying mankind or nature itself going berserk unprovoked and turning on mankind.

These narratives with the former being outrightly laughable and the latter subject to debate are indeed far from the reality on ground. The latter scenario of nature going rogue without any 'provocation' and turning on mankind is anything but true. Just as with other things in life, there is always a cause and effect. The careless action executed at time a will surely bear consequences at time b.

The interval between both points in time could either be instant or manifest after several years or centuries. Thus the natural disasters or nature's reactions (the effect) often has a remote cause which lies at the doorstep of mankind.

Indeed turmoil has spread over the land and sea because of the handiworks of mankind.

Our planet as we know it is warming up at an alarming rate. The manifestations of this are clearly evident for everyone to see. There's virtually no safe haven from the effects of climate change . Every continent has been 'served breakfast' as we say in a local parlance i.e. each continent has had its fair share of natural disasters with the number of courses in the respective meals being different i.e. different levels of severity.

The world powers seem to think that climate change is no big deal as there seems to be no political will or action to close ranks and face this challenge head on. Disappointingly some world leaders at some point in time totally dismissed climate change as a mere political gimmick. Times have since changed as no political figure except he or she intends to commit political suicide will dare term climate change as a hoax because no country on the planet has been spared of its effects either directly or indirectly.

Despite the numerous conferences to address the issue, the latest being the United Nations Climate Change conference, COP 27 held just last month, there's no visible light at the end of the tunnel. The hope that is usually kindled or rekindled for affirmative action after such conferences is often dashed afterwards within a short interval only to be rekindled at yet another conference.

The richer nations on the planet whose carbon footprint play a more significant role in Climate change have consistently failed to redeem their financial pledges to the effort to mitigate the effects of climate change. As we say , their financial commitment have been more of 'audio money' with the actual contribution falling way short of what was expected or not being made at all.

Ironically it is the poorer developing nations who are deficient of resources that often bear the consequences of natural disasters due to emissions that are largely do not come from them . The effects in such nations are usually heart breaking with destruction of infrastructure and loss of lives . These nations are ill equipped to handle such natural disasters because of their poor or weak financial standing.

The chickens have indeed come home to roost. You might want to critically ask yourself if you haven't experienced the effects of climate change in your locality. I know I certainly have. At a national level, we experienced one of the most terrible flooding incidents in recent times a few months ago. The flooding was so devastating that it left whole communities submerged with parts of several States completely inaccessible by vehicles.

Some persons are now just returning to the homes they had to abandon because the flood waters have now receded. Lives have been lost and livelihoods destroyed . Cultivated croplands were washed away and we're all living witnesses to the food inflation that has set in because of the shortage of some of the food crops .

I will narrate a striking effect of climate change that I have personally witnessed. Today is the first of December,going by the 'normal' order of things , we ought to have been at least two months into the dry season where expectedly there should be no rainfall. Guess what barely a few days ago, there was a heavy downpour just a few days ago not just rain drizzling.

This occurrence would have thrown the whole place into pandemonium had it occured a decade or so ago . The reason for this is that back then there was still some distinction as to when the respective seasons begin and end. The dry season usually started around October and ended in April. But these days nothing is normal and as it used to be.

I may sound alarmist but the reality is that the polar ice caps are melting and receding, coral reefs are being decimated and forests are being destroyed on a large scale. These actions have resulted in some wildlife species going extinct while some are endangered. If collective action is not taken promptly mankind may just make its way to the list of endangered species especially those living in areas where the effects of climate change are more severe.

Is there anything you and I can do aside reducing our individual carbon footprint? The answer is quite simple. Nature has given us a gift to correct our mistakes but will we accept and utilize this gift? Planting a tree wherever and whenever one can and encourage others to do so may just be part of our saving grace.

Trees are an invaluable asset in the fight against climate change because of their ability to absorb carbon from the atmosphere. Let's join the few carbon negative countries (Suriname, Bhutan and Panama) in doing whatever we can to achieve cutting down global carbon emissions to return the balance in nature and ultimately save ourselves.

Thank you for reading.