Nigerians have a very good sense of humor and a creative way of turning a difficult situation into fun. I recently came across some very interesting write-ups online, and I couldn’t but ponder on the undercurrents of the write-ups. They go thus…
“Dear Sun
There is no contest. It’s not even a competition. You are still the hottest thing on planet earth. Nobody dey drag am with you. Please stop showing off.”
Signed,
Roasted Nigerian.
“The rate at which this sun is going, it’s like the last person that entered hell fire forgot to close the door.”
The reality is, we shouldn’t underestimate the power of CLIMATE CHANGE. It is responsible for the evident mass movement of people and animals from one part of the Country to another; large expanse of land and bodies of water are gradually being lost, and villages have disappeared over night. In fact, in 2012, 2013 and 2015 respectively, temperatures rose to about 42 degrees Celsius in some Chinese cities, claiming hundreds of lives. It was so bad that children and adults alike in China would go almost naked in the streets, and also readily take a dip in the nearest public water fountains.
In all of these, we should be quick to remind ourselves that human activities are in no small measure responsible for most of the gory taste of weather instability we now have to endure. It explains why climate change and unpredictable temperatures now seems to be the order of the day.
Our continuous emission of harmful anthropogenic greenhouse gases (GHGs) which include carbon dioxide, methane, oxides of nitrogen and fluorinated gases. The most dangerous among these GHGs is the carbon dioxide because it is the biggest contributor to the ozone layer depletion of the earth, thereby bringing about Climate change leading to global warming.
Presently, weather sensitive diseases are on the increase; continuous rise in water levels; unusual harshness of the sun, leading to skin cancer, the seeming unstoppable encroachment of the Sahara Desert, erosion, floods, etc. These are all direct consequences of climate change. A greater % of the carbon dioxide emanates from automobiles, fossil fuels burning, gas flaring as we currently have in Nigeria, industrial sources and other human activities such as poor land use, forestry and devastating deforestation in northern Nigeria.
As a result of man’s advancement in technology, and the quest to satisfy our insatiable needs, we build dams and destroy our waterways in the process, cut down trees to build houses to accommodate our ever-increasing population, as well as build mega stores in the name of development, decimate our forests,our industries and automobiles emit dangerous gasses, thereby multiplying the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and the trees that are supposed to absorb the carbon dioxide, we cut them down without planting new ones. Among the countries of the world, China, USA, India, the Russian federation, Japan, Canada, some European countries are the leading emitters of emissions, with China taking the lead. All these actions of man speak volumes of man’s inhumanity to the environment and creating an imbalance in our ecosystem.
As the old saying goes… Prevention is better than cure… Inasmuch as I applaud the creativity of the writers I quoted earlier, I would however advise that we begin to channel our minds to more creative ways of protecting the environment. We must be responsible in managing our environment. We should begin to think of proffering solutions to the hydra-headed challenge of climate change, rather than make fun of the effect of the sun on mankind.
We must be mindful to the point that the same weather, and its unpredictability, which we joke about today, has all it takes to consume us tomorrow, if nothing is done to checkmate the effects of climate change, as well as mitigate its effect on both plants and animals that depend solely on environmental sustainability.
We have to embark on effective sensitization about climate change, and make effort to cut down on our carbon emission by observing our carbon footprint, adopting environmental friendly lifestyles by simple adjustments such as, switching off lights when not in use, turn off the taps when brushing our teeth, replace your bulbs with energy saving bulbs, eat locally produced food, plant more trees, and people should begin to appreciate the importance of exercises, even if it means walking to our places of work once in a while. No matter how seemingly insignificant such an action may seem, it would help reduce the amount of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere.
Let me remind us that human beings cannot survive in Venus due to the amount of green house gasses trapped there. However, with the way our precious Earth is going, if nothing is done to systematically reduce our carbon footprint, we just might end up making our precious Earth another Venus, thereby making us victims of our own developmental actions collectively and globally.
– Ladi Jato, sent in this piece from Lokoja.
