Climate Change Will Kill All Of Us

By Asanga Abeyagoonasekera –June 27, 2015

Asanga Abeygoonasekera

“Actually, the forest is complete life, and it is the forest that gives strength to human beings to fight for the welfare of humanity.” Chief Almir Narayamoga Surui tribe leader

A father carries his three year old dead child from the heat wave in Karachi, Pakistan. More than 700 lives have been taken due to the highest recorded temperature in fifteen years 44.8 degrees celsius in Pakistan and more than 2000 dead in the neighboring India. Karachi a city of 20 million people who lives with limited access to electricity, limited for only few hours a day, the rich has got the generators and most of them would survive while poor has no option but to die as they cant switch on any cooling device. The demand of the 20m people in Karachi cannot be met by the electricity grids, unable to keep up with the demand. The technologically sophisticated globalized world we live still unable to protect these innocent victims affected from the heat wave. It is a sad plight to see people being killed for heat. We have global leaders and top corporate sector who earn billions who talk of the values of human life but unable to do anything.

According to a prominent scientist David Auerbach “Humans will be extinct in 100 years due to overcrowding, declining resources and climate change”. The goal for the century is to keep the temperature below 2°C will be difficult with the current trends. A 5°C increase, as predicted to occur by 2100 at the moment, would cause widespread flooding, famine, drought and mass extinction according to Auerbach.

This author at the foothills of Davos in January was fortunate to interact and listen to Al Gore former US Vice President who spoke to the young global leaders, explaining what CO2 does to the climate and what we all need to do to protect and create a world for the present and the next generation. One hundred and ten million tons of CO2 every 24 hours is released to our atmosphere every day which seriously needs a change in our individual way of life, specially to reduce man made pollution around the world. The affect of climate change to Island nations will be drastic and its time we all take serious measures to curb environment pollution. Not further going towards projects such s Norochcholai coal power, since the entire world is moving away from coal and transitioning towards renewable energy the area we should concentrate when making future decisions. Private sector a key contributor to our economy should make protecting the environment a top priority including to their corporate social responsibility.                                          Read More