Climate Change : an issue which currently interests governments, ecologists, scientists, meteorologists, business organizations, university students, the global citizens etc….
According to some observations, the earth temperature is rising (since 1990) due to some factors such as industrial and motor vehicle gas pollution (heat-trapping gases) and also uncontrolled deforestation.
Possible consequences of Global Warming :-
- the ozone layer in some regions is slowly but gradually being destroyed.
- seasonal patterns are shifting.
- some regions are becoming drier while other regions are being subject to overflooding.
- cyclones are becoming more and more stronger.
- glaciers are receding at an astounding rate.
Last but not least : the sea level is rising…..
Have you heard about Carteret Islands ? The Carteret Islands are part of Papua New Guinea. The people (around 1,500) who reside in these islands live a simple non materialistic life. They have never worked (as an employee) in their life. They don’t have electricity, no phones, no television and there are no vehicles there. These people are very pacific and are socially bonded among themselves. A stress free society shall we say. Even if they are financially poor, they seem to enjoy a happy life.
Unfortunately, their current paradise situation is changing to the worst. Yes, the ocean level is rising and consequently one of the island has been divided into two because the middle part of the island has already been submerged by the sea. And according to projections, the island will be completely submerged in 10 – 15 years. This is a catastrophic scenario for the islanders and discussions concerning evacuation plans have started.
Have they become one of the first victims of global warming ? These people and many others tend to believe so...
What about Islands of the Indian Ocean such as Mauritius, Seychelles, Maldives, Reunion ? Can we face kind of calamity in the future ? I don’t know the answer but don’t you think it’s time for all of us (the citizen, the government, the industries, NGOs etc…) to start considering seriously of the possible danger of global climatic change and its possible effects in our region (example : super cyclone threat, severe drought, acid rain etc…).
How can we contribute, in our daily life, as a responsible citizen to prevent further global warming ?
Alain Fok
Ps : (09 April) : Just discovered an interesting WebSite : http://wecansolveit.org/
4 comments:
Sa va ???? Finally I am here :>
yes 5.08am .... i am supposed to work on my dissertation but you drag me here ... LOL.
enjoying reading some of the an articles ... well ... the francaise ones ... need some time to understand / guess. i am now working in a french company ... take a big walk and come back to this point ... hahahaha
global warming ... i did have a funny thought years ago ... when things come to the extreme, it will be going back to the starting point. either very hot or very very cold. We had a very long and cold winter this year which is adnormal ..... i start to worry about Lok Lok's future ....
once a time, i took a ferry back to office and met another mother. We had breakfast on the ferry and afterwards, i took out a handky to wipe my mouth ... she said i am still using handky. I replied i dun want my son not being able to see trees in the future ... she was quiet then .....
Face is an issue too when doing environmental preservation ... what a stupid one !!
well ... do our best even though it is not enough, better than none !
ciao
stay in touch and more articles !!
well ... i guess i forgot to put my name here ... LOL ...
i am Louise lah !!!
Well thks for your comments Louise :)
You are right in my opinion. I think we need to change our lifestyle if we want our future generations to admire and enjoy nature and animals as we did in our childhood when we often go on picnic with our parents to the beach or forest, do hiking/mountaineering with friends, watch dolphins in the lagoon, etc….
We don’t have to just blame some super powers countries which might have vested interests for not defining clear policies to control gas emissions coming from their industries/motor vehicles etc… , our blame our local authorities or ecological NGOs for not doing enough for environmental protection etc…
By doing simple actions in our daily life as a responsible global citizen, we could indirectly improve a lot of things. For example, if we throw our domestic waste in dustbins instead of throwing plastic bags, plastic bottles, used electronic devices, used mattress etc… in rivers or water canals, we might perhaps reduce the risk of river or street overflooding during heavy rains….
When we do our shopping in supermarkets, we could bring a reuseable raffia bag instead of going home with non-biogradable plastic bags. Why should we regularly change our mobile phones, our computers, our television, our cars, our clothes etc… simply because they became ‘old-fashioned’ ? Do you know how much energy (fuel, electricity…) is required to produce such non-biogradable stuffs and how much heat trapped gases are being expelled in the atmosphere by our manufacturing plants to run their production equipment ?
Maybe we should start thinking what we can do to save energy in any form…
Alain Fok
Most of you must have recently experienced the bad weather conditions in Mauritius for the past days. And you realise how hard it was to go to work or go to school on this Wednesday 27 March... And the kind of difficulty the population had to face in the afternoon when some homes, streets, schools etc... were completely overflooded following torrential rains. Rivers were overflooded and one could hardly go across overflooded bridges because it was very risksy.
And who can forget this 13 year old college student girl who unfortunately lost her life in that situation...
Have we been victims of climatic change and can that situation happen again regularly ?
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