Climate change - Greenland

I recently came across this episode on discovery.com - Wrapping Greenland. Although I always believed climate change is a real danger to the world, this episode literally scared me.

75% of earth water is locked as ice sheets on the polar regions.! And when you hear that those ice sheets are melting rapidly, you better be scared about it. I think the situation has gotten so worse that prevention is not an option now, and its going to be a gigantic challenge to just be able to slowdown the climate change.

For billions of years, nature has found its ways to maintain the balance. But in the past century we have done everything possible to disrupt this balance, and consistent with Newton’s Third Law, for every action (by us) there is an equal and opposite reaction (from nature). We know that climate has always kept changing and humans (and many others) have evolved to adapt with change – as Darwin explained. And we could do that because the change in climate was slow enough to give our bodies/genes time to evolve to adapt. But with all the actions in recent century, the climate has been changing so rapidly, that we mostly would not have enough time to adapt and hence would fail in “survival contest” – not with fellow earth mates, but with the nature itself.

Everyone in the world seems to be taking the current economic downturn/recession very seriously. And its encouraging to see the world come together to avoid further damage to economy. However, I believe climate change is a much much larger problem as compared to the recession. And yet, unfortunately, the world doesn’t seem to be taking it very seriously. This must change. The clock is ticking and with every second spent we are putting mankind in a grave danger. The world has to come together, work on “stimulus package” to revive nature’s balance and slow down climate change.

So what should be done? Well here are some steps I would suggest:

1. The world needs to acknowledge climate change as the biggest challenge and danger. May be the G-20 needs to meet again, and chart out an action plan – similar to the way they are doing currently for economy. Accept the fact that Climate Change is a higher priority than Economic Development.

2. This is not a problem of Rich or Poor, powerful or weak nations, its a global problem that touches every life. So every life in the world needs to be aware of the problem. We need a mass information campaign – first to spread awareness about the problem and then to let everyone know what they can do to help in this effort.

3. Bring out strong legislation in all countries to promote clean technologies and punish harmful ways. Even if this means slower economic growth.

4. Chart out ways to quantitatively measure the progress.

5. Spend on R&D to find out ways to avert this problem.

Mr Obama has really talked a lot about clean technologies during his election campaign, but I hope he walks the talk and leads the world in acknowledging climate change as the first priority.

In the 21st century we have to make up for the mistakes we have made in 20th century. If we don’t who know if there will even be a 22nd century..!

I have pledged to do make conscious effort to learn what I can do as citizen of the earth, put it into action myself, and also spread the word at every possible channel at my exposure.

CAPITALISM MUST NOT BE AT WAR WITH NATURE, ELSE IT MUST BE DUMPED.