"A conference is a gathering of important people who singly can do nothing, but together can decide that nothing can be done." - Fred Allen That's one of my favourite quotes. I admit, sometimes it does feel like a Sisyphean effort when it comes to environmental issues, such as climate change. Good news are far and in between. Check out this latest news today: "LONDON (AFP) – The Arctic ice cap will disappear completely in summer months within 20 to 30 years, a polar research team said as they presented findings from an expedition led by adventurer Pen Hadow.
It is likely to be largely ice-free during the warmer months within a decade, the experts added...
...The summer ice cover will completely vanish in 20 to 30 years but in less than that it will have considerably retreated," said Professor Peter Wadhams, head of the polar ocean physics group at Britain's prestigious Cambridge University.
"In about 10 years, the Arctic ice will be considered as open sea..."
I think Nobel Prize winner Professor Paul Krugman summed it up the best in his recent article:
"Every once in a while I feel despair over the fate of the planet. If you’ve been following climate science, you know what I mean: the sense that we’re hurtling toward catastrophe but nobody wants to hear about it or do anything to avert it.
... Part of the answer is that it’s hard to keep peoples’ attention focused. Weather fluctuates — New Yorkers may recall the heat wave that pushed the thermometer above 90 in April — and even at a global level, this is enough to cause substantial year-to-year wobbles in average temperature. As a result, any year with record heat is normally followed by a number of cooler years: According to Britain’s Met Office, 1998 was the hottest year so far, although NASA — which arguably has better data — says it was 2005. And it’s all too easy to reach the false conclusion that the danger is past.
But the larger reason we’re ignoring climate change is that Al Gore was right: This truth is just too inconvenient. Responding to climate change with the vigor that the threat deserves would not, contrary to legend, be devastating for the economy as a whole... "
So do we all just throw up our hands in despair and give in to the inevitable? That we might as well just party away and waste away our planet, since future generations will likely inhabit a wasteland of landfills and unbearably hot planet ala Wall-E?
The thing for me is, if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem. Poverty has existed since humans started living in communities? Why do we still keep giving aid to them? So does famine. So does other sorts of problems plaguing the world.
As progressive and advanced our society has become, the truth is all of us like to cling a bit to our past. Our parents still like to talk about the good ol' days growing up in the kampung or how Malaysia was in early ages. And even now, people still go back to their "kampung" in droves for festivities like Hari Raya etc. But what we don't realise is that the same fate is befalling our environment. Soon we will start reflecting on the good ol' days of nice cool weather, shady trees, and when tsunamis, flood, and avalanches are as foreign as Burkina faso.
I believe we can all do our part, no matter how small, to make our lifestyle greener. If it's not out of altruism for the plane, at least to ease our conscience on what kind of world we want our kids to live. Use less energy (electricity, petrol), reduce plastic, try switching to greener products if possible, and recycle.
"The danger posed by climate change cannot be denied. Our responsibility to meet it must not be deferred. If we continue down our current course, every member of this Assembly will see irreversible changes within their borders. Our efforts to end conflicts will be eclipsed by wars over refugees and resources. Development will be devastated by drought and famine. Land that human beings have lived on for millennia will disappear. Future generations will look back and wonder why we refused to act; why we failed to pass on -- why we failed to pass on an environment that was worthy of our inheritance."
-Barack Obama, UN General Assembly Sept 23, 2009
