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A look at the adverse effects of human activity-induced climate change and how it can be prevented.
We are all witness to the increased frequency of extreme weather events (EWEs) over the last few years. Flash floods, cloud bursts, cyclones, and droughts regularly make screaming headlines in media. All of us feel alarmed and express sympathy with the victims, often participating in campaigns to raise money and other resources for them. Some more energetic ones even travel to the affected areas and provide hands-on assistance. National and state disaster relief outfits have become better organised, being now able to restrict the number of lives lost.
However, all too soon, we forget the incidents, go back to our work, and it is once again business as usual.
What happened in Uttarakhand, Kashmir, Chennai, Mumbai, Kerala, and Odisha is still fresh in our collective memory. August 30, 2022 brought frightening reports on social media:
Bangalore comes to a halt!
Schools and colleges shut; Government declares a holiday while all agencies come to grips with the unprecedented floods following the incessant rains that lashed the city.
IMD issues Yellow alert.
Bangalore, as we are all aware, is now literally the showcase city of our country. Almost all ‘Fortune 500’ companies as well as many leading domestic ones have set up their tech centers or R&D labs here. The city draws probably more attention than even Delhi or Mumbai, as far as business is concerned. So, imagine the collective loss of human hours in reaching their work places, food and other supplies reaching them in time, or missed flights, trains, etc., due to EWEs.
Unfortunately, such EWEs are becoming all too frequent. And, it is not only in India; there are well-publicised international cases: extreme heat in Europe, freak snowfall in Dubai, and devastating floods in Manhattan. Rising sea levels have already claimed many low-lying islands and areas near the oceans. Countries like Maldives face being totally submerged while parts of Bangladesh are not far behind. The EWEs monster does not differentiate between the rich and poor nations!
Thankfully, almost everyone now admits that: (a) there is climate change, (b) human action has accelerated it, and (c) human action can help in amelioration of the situation.
This is unlike five to 10 years ago when many people thought all this was the imagination of some mad scientists!
During the last couple of years, there is a lot of discussion on the issue in several international summits to collectively find a solution to slow down the deadly march. 2022 has witnessed ‘climate change’ on top of the agenda of all governments, corporate world, international institutions, research outfits, NGOs, scientists…really, every one!
News from IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) is keenly awaited. All large companies—even those involved in the energy business—are continuously updating their plans to achieve ‘carbon neutrality’ or better still ‘zero emissions’. It is a truly global problem that all countries have to tackle jointly—the richer ones have to spend more because they are the ones who have caused greater damage.
Very few still question the reasons for the calamities, the science behind the devastation. My only objective is to remind ourselves that human action has indeed played a significant role in accelerating the menacing advance of climate change and human action can certainly help in moderating the situation.
It is also important to highlight the fact that a ‘business as usual’ approach would lead to unmitigated disaster for all humanity. The possible effects of global warming, say an increase of 2°C in the temperature of Earth— our only home in the vast universe—include a broad spectrum. Expect:
(a) Up to 20 per cent reduction in productivity and 25 per cent loss in nutrition value of crops; meaning, food security goes for a toss;
(b) Huge loss of marine life, a staple food for millions, and again, a serious threat to food security;
(c) Unsustainable water stress leading to loss
(d) Increased risk of disease; and
(e) Consequent disruptions leading to unimaginable political and social instability. To be candid, life will just not be sustainable!
First, a little bit about the science of climate change. At the heart of the matter is the exponential increase in emission of greenhouse gases (GHGs) due to irresponsible industrial activity over the last six to seven decades. These gases get trapped in Earth’s atmosphere, creating a sort of an annular spherical ring wrapping the planet. The thicker the ring, the greater is the propensity of the planet getting warmer from the energy radiated by the sun.
Slide 1 illustrates how energy from the sun keeps our planet warm and comfortable. Some infrared rays get reflected back from Earth and get trapped in its atmospheric ring. As more rays get trapped, the ‘ring’ keeps getting thicker.
Look at slide 2 showing different planets. Mercury is a lot closer to Sun compared to Venus and yet, its temperature (167°C) is drastically lower than that of Venus at 457°C!
Reason?
The thickness of the ‘atmospheric ring’ around Venus is much more.
Slides 3 and 4 showcase the data determined by NASA scientists by drilling ‘ice cores’ in the Antarctic in 1977. Analysing carbon dioxide content in the entrapped air bubbles over a long period of 6,50,000 years shows that Earth has had the unique good fortune of maintaining an average temperature of 15°C, which is very conducive for sustaining human and plant life and food chains in the oceans.
There is a direct co-relation between Earth’s temperature and the carbon content (slide 4) in the air, which has never exceeded 300 parts per million (ppm) over this long period with alternate warm periods and ice ages. Only in the last seven decades has this balance got disturbed radically, raising the carbon concentration to about 450 ppm currently and increasing the temperature of the planet by about 0.5 to 0.6°C. With ‘business as usual’, the carbon concentration is likely to cross 600 ppm by 2050!
There are various estimates to indicate an increase of one degree by 2040/50 and another degree before the end of the century. Ready for the calamity?
Biodiversity is another victim of climate change. The study that “one million species of plants and animals are on the verge of becoming extinct” made headlines recently. This alarming increase in the threat of extinction, symptomatic of the human-induced degeneration of the natural ecosystems, is the key finding of the first global assessment on the health of the planet by the United Nations backed Inter Governmental Panel on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services.
To illustrate my point, let me pose a small question here. All people of the generation born in the forties and fifties would have seen and heard frogs, one of the longest surviving species that has outlived the dinosaurs, near wells and ponds. We have even brought these delightful creatures home as pets. I wonder how many of the current readers have ever seen one?
I haven’t for, maybe, 60 years!
Environmentalists have predicted that, in this century, we risk losing 50 per cent all living species! For instance, the mangroves in the Sundarbans, the trees that guard against land erosion in coastal areas, have decreased by 20 per cent in the last 40 years.
Yet, all is not lost. Solutions exist, including some easy ones for each of us. Of course, we have to leave the big jobs for the governments. So let us first talk about what all we can do.
Plant trees
Trees act like a carbon sink and air purifier put together. Besides, trees increase forest cover, providing the multiple benefits of attracting rains, keeping the advance of deserts in check, and compensating for the depletion due to industrial uses. Slide 5 lists the trees to people ration in some countries.
Save water.
Fresh water is our most precious natural resource, and we have always taken it for granted. Sadly, we are running out of it! And it is not because of the insufficient total rainfall in the country. We are running out of water because of the grossly inefficient distribution and criminal wastage. As far back as the early eighties, a Nobel laureate, speaking at the ‘Water Summit’ in Zurich, had made the chilling prophecy that, “World War III will be fought over Water.”
He was probably not wrong. Our own NITI Aayog has recently come out with a report saying, “600 million Indians are already facing high to extremely high ‘water stress’ and 200,000 of them die every year due to inadequate access to it.”
We need to save every single drop of water if we want to ensure that our children and grandchildren get at least the bare minimum required for drinking, bathing, washing, and agriculture. Slide 6.
Collect waste water from your R/O units (reportedly, wastage here is three times the quantity of purified water) and the condensate from air conditioners and use it for washing/ cleaning.
Avoid using bottled water; a lot of people will consume only a part of the quantity in the bottle and discard the rest. Besides the water wastage, it also adds to the mounting problem of not-easily-recyclable plastic bottles. Steering clear of bottled water helps you kill two birds with one stone.
Each house/office/factory must religiously install a proper rain water harvesting system on the premises and ensure that every drop of rain water is channelled into the system to help recharge ground water aquifers.
Save energy.
Switch off all unnecessary lights, fans, appliances, air conditioners even if you are stepping out for a few minutes. TVs and other gadgets on stand-by mode also consume some power, which when multiplied by a few million does add up to significant amounts.
Use LED bulbs.
Give up your ‘love for 18°C ’; many of us like to set the air conditioners at the minimum possible 18°C and wear jackets and ties in the office and use blankets at home at night. Crazy as it sounds, they even sell ‘A/C blankets’ in the market!
Believe me, when you are sleeping, the combination of 26°C on the A/C with the fan on is quite comfortable for the average human body and you will be able to save large amounts of power and also money on the electricity bills. Japan has mandatorily stopped the use of jackets and neck ties in government offices, and this simple step has permitted them to increase the thermostat settings by 2°C, leading to huge saving of energy.
Soak pulses and beans overnight so there is need of less gas for cooking. Clean stoves consume 50 per cent less fuel and give out 80 per cent less emission.
Using thick glass on windows, reflective tiles on the roof, and white paint on external walls will amount to amazing savings on the heating and cooling load of your building.
Every kilowatt saved means a small dent in the harmful emissions! A recent study showed that India can save a mind boggling $42 billion annually with optimally enhanced energy efficiency.
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