The Day After Tomorrow

Every day we get news of further evidence of global warming and what its effects are likely to be. The events shown in the movie ‘The Day After Tomorrow’ now seems plausible.

By now majority of people in the US must also have accepted this fact (save a few people in the administration) But the big question is what are we going to do to slow it down? Whose responsibility should it be? Should developed countries bear the sole responsibility or should developing countries pitch in too?

Efforts are on throughout the world to develop greener technologies whether it be in car engines or in industrial processes. But there is large scale focused effort yet. Through the Kyoto Protocol the EU has taken some responsibility but it is not sufficient. At some time the US and developing countries like India and China will have to pitch in. Developing countries need to understand that they will be hardest hit by global warming and hence they must do their bit to prevent it. Developed countries may expect India and China to sacrifice some of their growth for the environment. But I don’t think this will be acceptable to them. Why should they not strive to raise their living standards to those of the West? It is the development of the West that has caused a lot of this damage and they have a right to cause as much. At best they can offer to implement the green technologies developed by the West to lessen the impact of their growth. But these technologies will have to come cheap.

The biggest source of global warming has been found to be methane emissions by cattle but there has been absolutely no effort yet to tackle this source of warming. Surely there will now be research on genetic modifications to reduce this.

Another big source of methane is paddy cultivation. Here again better quality seeds and improved cultivations methods can make a huge difference.

In both these cases India, China, Russia and other developing countries will have to play a major part in reducing emissions.

The time has come for a concerted global effort. We must act fast or we will see our cities drowning very soon