CLIMATE CHANGE: Too Real to Believe?

August 22, 2019

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While the youth from different parts of the world, including India, were screaming, shouting, trying to spread awareness about the severe changes being seen in the climate, from the speeding melting of ice, coral reefs dying, increasing temperature across the world, including the cold regions, the increasing number of flora and fauna moving towards extinction, NO ONE CARED. And that’s pretty normal, I guess.

Talking about today, if I were to become the most powerful person today, I would have done anything and everything to save our Respiratory System- the Amazon Rain forest. Now, if you aren’t aware, it is absolutely fine. We, every other country came to know about Amazon is on fire for 16 DAYS, just 2 days ago. And yes, this is normal too.

While no media bothered covering such an ‘uninteresting’, ‘not that important’ event, nature had its way of conveying its message. The sudden, scary darkening of the sky in Sau Paulo because of the fire from the burning Amazon, ie; 2000 km at 3 pm was no less than a shock to the world. When no one stood for nature, that was her way of saying ‘Things are changing, and might get worse’.

Amazon Rain forest, lungs of planet Earth and the producer of 20% of oxygen and absorbs ¼th of the carbon dioxide, is dying. Home to approximately 3 million species, Amazon is spread over an area of 2.1 million square miles. The speed at which the fire is spreading, hopes of it slowing down is very little. If this fire continues, Earth will lose one of its natural defenses to fight issues like global warming and more importantly, Climate Change.

If your syllabus in school or ‘Anaconda’ caught your attention and you studied deeply about Amazon, you might have also read about its importance. From the anti-cancerous plant to the toucan to the poisonous dart frog, Amazon is home to 10% of the species on Earth. I could go on talking about Amazon, and those who have ‘curiosity bug’ can spend time doing some research on their own.

Taking time, I would want to bring your attention to the worldwide worry and the mourning of people from different parts of the world looking at the raging fire. When asked, according to the Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro, the NGOs may have set the fire. The world still has no answers for the ‘why no coverage for 16 days’.

According to one of the NASA researchers Santiago Gasso, the thick smoky layer created by the fire covers an area of approximately 1.2 million square miles.

The internet, especially social media sites like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter have been on fire since the news and pictures about the Amazon fire broke out. Celebrities among everyone decided to express their concern about the irresponsibility and the unavoidable climate change. Posts from Leonardo Di Caprio, Ariana Grande, Demi Lovato, etc got a lot of attention. Patrick Adams, Cody Simpson, Jaden Smith, Noah Cyrus, Kendal Jenner also took the issue to social networking sites. Some of the Bollywood celebrities like Alia Bhatt, Akshay Kumar, Anushka Sharma, Arjun Kapoor, and Disha Patani also chose to speak for the same. The ‘#PrayForTheAmazon’ has been trending since yesterday.

As a commoner, what can we do save Amazon? Half of the world still doesn’t know about the event. One thing that we can do is, spread the word. Share about the event in your stories and posts, use hashtags and make people aware of the scenario. Let the world know what/ where are we heading.

According to news sources/ channels/ websites, this year Greenland’s 440 billion tons of ice might disappear.

Why not start taking responsibility and take care of Mother Earth, at least now? Do a bit of research on how you can contribute to saving Earth, even if it makes no difference, just to live a little longer and serve Earth.