Experts are warning: Adapt or die, Are we ready for this Climate challenge??

    

1.     We are still struggling to set right the setbacks created by others in the past; most times we are too ignorant about the future of this country. Rich are securing themselves with thousands of crore, while lower class left with some satiety as it is out of reach. Middle class is going to either rise or perish with serious stress related illnesses.  But look at outside, what is happening in the rest of the world trying to understand the contingent plans to fight battle against the deteriorating mother earth. My dear Indian citizens, leaders and every one please wake up; no baba can save this country from fury of nature as we witnessed several times in the past. Whole world is catering huge amounts of funds to survive the future; we are tight lipped rather light lipped on these vital issues and simply burning time discussing issues like corruption and Anna Hazare.

2.     With the world losing the battle against global warming so far, experts are warning that humans need to follow nature's example: Adapt or die.  That means elevating buildings, making taller and stronger dams and seawalls, re-routing water systems, restricting certain developments, changing farming practices and ultimately moving people, plants and animals out of harm's way.

3.     Adapting to rising seas and higher temperatures is expected to be a big thing for our future; means lot of money and much of it going to countries that cannot afford it. That adaptation will be a major focus is remarkable in itself. Until the past couple of years, experts avoided talking about adjusting to global warming for fear of sounding fatalistic or causing countries to back off efforts to reduce emissions.

4.     "It's something that's been neglected, hasn't been talked about and it's something the world will have to do," said Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. "Adaptation is going to be absolutely crucial for some societies."

5.     Some biologists point to how nature has handled the changing climate. The rare Adonis blue butterfly of Britain looked as if it was going to disappear because it couldn't fly far and global warming was making its habitat unbearable. To biologists' surprise, it evolved longer thoraxes and wings, allowing it to fly farther to cooler locales. "Society needs to be changing as much as wildlife is changing," said Texas A&M University biologist Camille Parmesan, an expert on how species change with global warming.

6.      One difficulty is that climate change is happening rapidly.
"Adaptation will be particularly challenging because the rate of change is escalating and is moving outside the range to which society has adapted in the past" when more natural climate changes happened, US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration chief Jane Lubchenco, a marine biologist, told.
Cities, states and countries are scrambling to adapt or are at least talking about it and setting aside money for it. Some examples:

• England is strengthening the Thames River flood control barrier at a cost of around half a billion dollars.
• The Netherlands is making its crucial flood control system stronger.
• California is redesigning the gates that move water around the agriculturally vital Sacramento River Delta so that they can work when the sea level rises dramatically there.
• Boston elevated a sewage treatment plant to keep it from being flooded when sea level rises. New York City is looking at similar maneuvers for water plants.
• Chicago has a program to promote rooftop vegetation and reflective roofs that absorb less heat. That could keep the temperature down and ease heat waves.
• Engineers are installing "thermal siphons" along the oil pipeline in Alaska, which is built on permafrost that is thawing, to draw heat away from the ground.
• Researchers are uprooting moisture-loving trees along British Columbia's coastal rainforests and dropping their seedlings in the dry ponderosa pine forests of Idaho, where they are more likely to survive.
• Singapore plans to cut its flood-prone areas in half by 2011 by widening and deepening drains and canals and completing a 226-million-dollar dam at the mouth of the city's main river.
• In Thailand, there are large-scale efforts to protect places from rising sea levels. Monks at one temple outside Bangkok had to raise the floor by more than three feet.

·         Desperately poor Bangladesh is spending more than 50 million dollars on adaptation. It is trying to fend off the sea with flood control and buildings on stilts.

·         President Barack Obama and Congress are talking about 1.2 billion dollars a year from the US for international climate aid, which includes adaptation. The UN climate chief, Yvo de Boer, said 10 to 12 billion dollars a year is needed from developed countries through 2012 to "kick-start" things. Then it will get even more expensive.

·         The World Bank estimates adaptation costs will total 75 to 100 billion dollars a year over the next 40 years. The International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), a London think tank, says that number is too low.

·         It may even be 200 or 300 billion dollars a year, said Chris Hope, a business school professor at the University of Cambridge and part of the IIED study.

·         Nevertheless, Hope said failing to adapt would be even more expensive — perhaps six trillion dollars a year on average over the next 200 years. Adaptation could cut that by about two trillion dollars a year, he said.

·         As much as three-quarters of the spending will be needed in the developing world, experts say.

Indian Scene

Now there is no time to wait, we are watching how weather has changed and night temperatures have increased, diseases are on the rise and everything costs so much of money; keeping all activities apart, every citizen should personally involve in achieving these by reducing use of harmful agents. 

·         Plastics and vinyl posters

·         Conserve water and energy (save rain water)

·         Reduce Chemical use

·         Spare your  vehicles and reduce air pollution and, noise pollution

·         Save trees

·         Reduce E-waste ( eg. Cell phones)

·         Educate your children, servants and friends

Urgent need of Government to

·         Develop Scientific committees

·         Take people’s opinion through media

·         Develop urgent strategies village vise, town-vise and city-vise

·         Special drive for rural population

·         Cut down agricultural pollution

·         Hold on industries like mining, timber and order studies on environmental impact assessment

·         Make citizens as partners in implementing these plans

·         Do not mix politics and mother earth   for God’s sake………. 

      Prof Dr. S Bakhtiar Choudhary,                                                                                           Green Peace Activist-Hyderabad