By Oliver Kasito Jnr
Our planet is being destroyed, the eco-system cycle has been compromised and the climate has changed. Every single day we are seeing and experiencing the tragedy occurrences due to the destruction of our planet and we always do have the courage of asking questions like: why did it start? Who started it? How come we are in this situation? We are in a good position to answer these questions but we pretend to be ignorant of something we know, why? Because we don’t want to be hold accountable hence shun the responsibility of preserving the planet.
In 2009 over a hundred thousand of demonstrators from around the world matched in the streets of Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark during the United Nations Climate Change Conference. The demonstrators carried placards and banners with slogans and I quote one of it “don’t change the climate, change the system!” end of quote. People today have taken activities of destroying the environment as a life style due to the system we are all in, the system that provides the mindset of thinking nothing else but “us” not tomorrow but today. No wonder we are experiencing the melting of the ice in Greenland, droughts, earthquakes and floods frequently in this 21st century than the past decades.
One thing that people are ignorant about is that; when climate change, everything changes. It affects the economy of the country, because the government has to invest in buying food elsewhere because of low production in food like what happened to Malawi in 2017. Food insecurity, low in food production lead to food insecurity and this result into hunger that can kill both people and animals. All these factors can be associated to climate change, and climate change is not a fairytale written by William Shakespeare. Climate change is a reality created by human beings with their harmful acts on the environment.
On the 1st of June of 2017 the president of the United States of America (USA) Donald Trump said and I quote “Climate change is a hoax” end of quote. This led to the USA’s withdrawal of the Paris Climate deal. The Paris Climate Agreement was signed in December of 2015 by the world leaders from 194 countries and the European Union, states that human-caused climate change represents “an urgent and potentially irreversible threat to human societies and the planet” that will require “deep reductions in global emissions.” Fast forward on the 15th of October 2018 the president of the United States of America, Donald trump said and I quote “Climate change is not a hoax” end of quote. This is simply giving us more evidence of the existence of climate change but it is unfortunate how ignorant other presidents can be, in denying the fact.
Europe
-According to NASA Global Climate Change for centuries, the atmospheric carbon dioxide had never been above 320 but as I am speaking to you right now the atmospheric carbon dioxide is at 420 with the possibility of rising from here, this is very devastating that is why we need to take action against activities that lead to climate change.
– The planet’s average surface temperature has risen about 1.62 degrees Fahrenheit (0.9 degrees Celsius) since the late 19th century, a change driven largely by increased carbon dioxide and other human-made emissions into the atmosphere.
– The number of record high temperature events in the United States has been increasing, while the number of record low temperature events has been decreasing, since 1950. The U.S. has also witnessed increasing numbers of intense rainfall events and I wonder why there president has been denying these facts for the past year.
Africa
– In Africa, prolonged droughts have been felt across the continent. Between 2007 and 2009, severe droughts in Kenya and Tanzania significantly reduced local communities’ crop yields and livestock productivity. But it also had a big effect on the region’s wildlife.
– Climate change has even led to increased conflict in some parts of Africa, including human–wildlife conflict and human–human conflict. Disputes are mainly over water resources, which are diminishing because of less rainfall.
It is not too late for us to reverse these trends—there is still hope that something can be done. However, everyone must play their part in this reversal. As a collective we have to be in a position of accepting climate change is real and therefore creating climate change resilience opportunities for our countries and communities; thinking new adaptation and mitigation measures; and helping our countries and communities find sustainable ways to protect and promote the conservation of natural resources. This is the moment when the planet is begging for our collective as people to protect it from being destroyed. The moment we are living as people it deserve life too, who is the one to give it? ITS US.
References
https://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/
https://www.awf.org/blog?p=1616&page=18
With - Jimmy Brian Kayange 