GLOBAL WARMING: GLOBAL OR LOCAL

Being a highly debated topic in the last few decades with countless interviews on the causes and consequences, Mother Earth cannot get rid of global warming. So why is that? Even though the countries have come up with several proposals and resolutions, they have not succeeded as planned. Why? WE ARE NOT TRYING HARD ENOUGH. Let us put aside the fairy tales of economy, growth, and money.  When was the last time you had a beautiful monsoon, enjoyed the climate cycle, the greatest farming, and saw happy faces? All these happened before “pollution” came in. When we were busy celebrating the latest inventions, global warming was going wild. As shifting weather patterns to rising sea levels and their impacts are global in scope, this is generally seen as a global issue. However, it is the need of the hour, we should act locally. They say, “Think global, act local”. No, “Think locally, act locally”.

Air pollution in cities is a wicked problem. Delhi started its journey to clean its air in the 1990s by changing its fuel to compressed natural gas, which emits much fewer emissions than conventional fuels like diesel. The cleaner fuel was used to run Delhi’s public transport vehicles. However, even as this happened, the number of private vehicles surged. Worse, the use of diesel increased. As a result, pollution is returning with revenge. In November 2019, in Delhi, the government ordered schools closed for a second time because of severely poor air quality. SAFAR, India’s pollution monitoring agency, advised everyone and asked them to close all their windows and avoid going outside. SAFAR recommended they wear N-95 or P100 respirators if people had to go outdoors. These are the masks that were generally used on construction sites. Though India is not alone in this, ranks 5th in the highest climate risk index with 18.17 in the world.

As many as 2.67 billion citizens, more than 40 percent of the world’s people, still burn biomass in their inefficient and filthy cooker stoves despite years of the world being “modern”. This is another wicked problem. Efforts to provide renewable energy for cooking started in the early 1980s when the world was concerned not about stove waste, but the possibility of forest destruction due to firewood collection. This has not occurred in a country like India. Even today, rural, and impoverished Indians, who make up 75% of the population, use inefficient stoves and inhalation chemicals that are now the world’s number one killer.

The reason for both the problems is one particulate matter called Black carbon, a local pollutant. With the extent of its warming is still being debated, we could see that it is a local pollutant with higher global impacts. We could see that the major reason for climate change or global warming is a local pollutant and this shows why we should start acting locally.

We do not realize the psychological effects that happen because of global warming. Flooding and extended droughts have been associated with heightened levels of anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorders. Natural hazards have adverse impacts on health and emotional well-being. While most people would eventually do well, many persons affected by severe weather conditions and slower events such as droughts encounter a variety of difficulties. The behavioral health effects of global climate change events include moderate tension and distress, high-risk coping habits such as elevated substance consumption, and, rarely, mental illnesses such as depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress.

Climate change-related effects will also contribute to job loss, cause people to migrate, or lead to a lack of social care and cultural resources—all of which have mental health consequences. Besides, expectations of adverse weather conditions and anxiety about the climate change phenomena may be stressful.

How much are we concerned about this as a youngster? You are concerned and waiting for the government or the authority to come up with any strategies and proposals. And after the measures have been re-engineered and come into being, do you care to obey the arrangements or make your family or friends do that? How many young people in India know the policies or boards that the government has set established to secure against global warming and climate change? Many documentaries, films, or dramas on global warming have arrived in the traditional Indian way of action sequences. Also, to remember in several world-famous movies, too. It is all ended with awards and appreciation. We are forgetting the effect or the reason these documentaries needed to realize. The days were the newspaper headlines that “the sky is falling” and relating the pandemic or climate change just seems like a nightmare. Even, how long are we going to degrade the government’s reluctance to manage action? We have wasted all that time; we should have stopped this early. Perhaps the pandemic was a shocking strike that helped us realize a lot. But this global warming is a gradual killer and is progressing. Start realizing the next time you have an unexpected or unusual rainfall. Because of this, we are going to end up with a shortage of resources. Climate change may signify many things, but a global resource war is almost an imminent result that needs to be part of the future that India is projecting for the next decade.

Act locally, this is the only thing that can succeed with this case. Speak to your friends, family, or social media about current strategies to protect our climate. Ensure that lawmakers also make improvements to the current technology growth program. Power your house with green energies, look at your electricity bill and how much power you use. Often, if you are wasting less food, you are likely to minimize energy consumption. Prefer public transport, you can do this after you take a good account of the petrol price and the tax imposed on it. We all know what we need to do to protect our world, and we do it every day. When are we going to start working on it and know that it all starts from our self? The planet cannot face a new situation like this pandemic. The pandemic has also shown the effects of climate change. If you need to make a change, be the change. Start with your home because there is no Planet B.

–ROSHINI D (PSG INISTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT)