Time to wake up and take action to save our planet

By S.M. John Kennedy, SJ

Time to wake up:

“Our planet’s alarm is going off, and it is time to wake up and take action,” said the famous Hollywood actor Leonardo DiCaprio. The month of February, 2024 was globally the warmest ever recorded, according to data from the EU’s Copernicus Programme, registering an average temperature of 1.8^oC higher than the pre-industrial average.

Life-supporting systems heavily damaged

Both the environment and our earth are precious, since our life depends on them. The earth gives us pure air, clean water, food, shelter, medicines and various other products.

Mother Earth is the only planet that accommodates life because it has the necessary heat, components of air in proper proportion and the life-sustaining water. Human interference has caused heavy damages to all these life supporting and sustaining systems. Air has been polluted, water contaminated and land degraded. All these have resulted in global warming and climate change.

Earth is getting hotter and hotter

Greenhouse gases are gases in the atmosphere that trap heat from the sun, causing the Earth’s surface to warm, a process known as the green house effect. The main green house gases are water vapor (H2O), carbon dioxide (CO2 ), released through natural processes like volcanic eruption, plant respiration, and human and animal breathing, methane (CH4), produced naturally through decomposition, nitrous oxide (N2O), produced through the use of commercial and organic fertilizers, ozone (O3) from air pollution. They are naturally present in the atmosphere, trapping sun’s heat to keep the earth warm. They keep the earth’s atmosphere warmer than it would otherwise be, supporting life on earth. But when they increase in proportion, it causes the green house effect and climate change.

The world is currently warming faster than at any other time in recorded history, causing changes in weather patterns and disrupting the balance of nature.

The world is currently warming faster than at any other time in recorded history, causing changes in weather patterns and disrupting the balance of nature. Natural greenhouse effect allows more heat to escape into the space. In human enhanced greenhouse effect, less heat escapes into space. Global temperature has been steadily rising since 1900 with a mean temperature increase of about 1^oC. In India, the temperature has increased between 0.2 and 1^oC in the last 100 years. Temperature has increased twice as fast during the last 50 years as it did in the last 100 years.

IPCC (Inter Governmental Panel of Climate Change) stated that almost 95% of human activities had warmed the planet during the past 50 years. These activities are mainly associated with burning fossil fuels, deforestation and tree clearing, agriculture and farming activities. The burning of fossil fuels, such as coal, oil, gas, etc for generating electricity is the leading cause of green house effect.

According to 2021 estimate, USA, European Union, China, Russia, Japan and India are the cause of 70% of such emissions. Richest 10% people are responsible for almost half of total lifestyle consumption emission. The poorest 50% people are responsible for only around 10% of total lifestyle consumption emissions.

Consequences

The consequences of climate change are the rising temperature, rising sea levels because of glaciers melting, unpredictable weather patterns, increase in extreme weather events, land degradation and loss of wildlife and biodiversity. Global sea level rose at an average of 1.8 mm per year over 1961 to 2003. The social impacts of climate change are displacement of people, poverty, hunger, malnutrition, increase risk of diseases, floods, water shortages, and loss of biodiversity.

Widespread increases in extreme temperature have been observed over the last 50 years. Cold days, cold nights, and frost have become less frequent, while hot days, hot nights and heat waves have become more frequent. The extent of Arctic Sea ice has declined by almost 8.5% per decade from 1979.

Pope Francis rightly pointed out that climate change raises vital moral and ethical issues. It is time that we heed his call to become ambassadors of environmental protection.

Disasters that await us:

Going by the present trends, global temperatures are likely to increase by 1.1 to 6.4^oC from 2020 to 2100. Sea levels are likely to rise in the range of 22 to 34 cm between 2020 and 2100. Tropical cyclones, typhoons, and hurricanes are likely to become more extreme, with larger peak wind speeds and more heavy precipitation.

Biodiversity underlies all ecological goods and services. It is estimated that 10 – 15% of the world’s species could become extinct over the next 30 years. People living in developing countries and underdeveloped countries are the most vulnerable.

Towards solutions

IPCC said, “Any further delay in concerted global action will mean that we will fail to shut the rapidly closing windows to secure a livable future.” Solutions to climate change start from our personal conversion towards eco friendly living. We need to adopt the principle of ‘reduce, reuse, recycle.’ We need to become conscious of the enormity and urgency of the problem and be the harbingers of energy efficient living, cutting our carbon footprint to zero.

By networking with civil society groups, we need to urge our policy makers to come up with policies and actions towards reduction of fossil fuels and ultimately their complete elimination. We should turn to natural sources of energy. The possible and less dangerous energy sources are nuclear, wind, geothermal, hydroelectric, solar and fusion. Waste management, promoting organic farming, practicing sustainable agriculture, using bio-pesticides and promotion of organic products, and reducing consumerism will go a long way in safeguarding our Mother Earth. Pope Francis has repeatedly called the people of the world to take ‘swift and unified global action.’ Laudato Si,’ Pope’s much-praised encyclical gave a boost to fossil fuel disinvestment movement. It called for reducing consumerist tendencies that lead to climate change. Pope Francis rightly pointed out that climate change raises vital moral and ethical issues. It is time that we heed his call to become ambassadors of environmental protection.

---