Climate Change

Climate change is uppermost in my mind, and I hope in many others' too. It is certainly the concern of many govermnents, and I was told that Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd had appointed a Minister for Climate Change and Water, Senator the Honourable Penny Wong to deal with this important issue and challenge. The British Government Chief Scientific Adviser was quoted to have said climate change poses a bigger threat to the world than terrorism.

Climate change affects world's habitats and ecosystems, not to mention food supply, energy consumption, health related problems and diseases, tourism and human migration. We are already witnessing frequent and repeated earthquakes, cyclones and delayed snows, the most recent was Nargis that affected Myanmar and the earthquakes at Sichuan province. I feel Singapore is getting warmer too. Perhaps this is the effect of global warming.

Since the industrial revolution, the burning of fossil fuels has increased greenhouse emissions. These gases trap more and more heat, which would otherwise escape into space. As a result, the planet's temperature is rising. Unless something is done, the world will become too hot for life as we know it.

Consider this scenario: With the global temperature now 5 deg Celcius higher than at the turn of the century, the world is now a different place. Millions have already fled from the low-lying islands in the Pacific and Asia because of an 80cm rise in sea levels. In Europe the Alps lost their snow and ice and the ski industry collapsed 20 years ago. The Himalayas have also lost about a third of their remaining ice cap, and last year the Ganges ran dry for the first time. Panic swept through India and Bangladesh, and in the biggest migration in human history, nearly 300 million people are moving towards Europe.

I shuddered at the thought of how my children and grandchildren would face black skies and yellow grass, and the sight of them putting on masks to protect themselves from pollution. Black skies from traffic pollution was one of the first thing I encountered when I arrived in Los Angeles as I travelled from the airport to Pasadena, sometime ago.

If I am able to take forward one idea, however small, to reverse global warming or to be environmentally-friendly, what would it be? I asked. Or are we doomed, as my daughter Muslihah, claimed?

There must something we can do, in addition to asking Allah, the Almighty, for His mercy.

Let's find out as much as we can about climate change and global warming: facts, figures, websites, organisations. Let's share the information gathered and talk about it whenever the opportunity arises, to play our khalific role and to create as many eco-minded saints who will save the planet.

A lot of people doing a lot of little things could have a huge impact.
And by doing something, we are demonstrating that lots of people really do care.