Climate Change - Time For East To Rise

When the threat of nuclear war loomed large on the western hemisphere people from Europe to America started planning for the eventful day when USA or USSR will use the weapons to annihilate each other.

Some moved to far away countries like New Zealand and some built bunkers in their houses and stock piled food to last for years. People found solutions from very basic to technologically innovative. From GPS to computers all owe their development to the era of nuclear horror so supposed horror.

They did this for a war that never happened. The threat never became real…. The one questions comes to mind is was all that lost? I wonder if we would have been at this point technologically if the threat wasn’t there…..

The Hopenhagen the wishful name of Copenhagen has been let down…. I wonder what we achieved. How naïve and myopic human race actually is….we deny the danger even if it is on the face of it and only wish we did otherwise after committing a mistake. For denialist I fail to understand how they can be skeptical of the changes….. we are mercilessly using the bounty and manipulating the land mass beyond recognition and doubting that it will bring some kind of adverse reaction….

I was shocked to hear India and China collaborated to stifle any real accord…. Why? do we believe we did justice? Since when carbon and development go hand in hand? Haven’t we changed the technology?

The situation is more like what we faced 60 years ago when nuclear age dawned on us. We can use the technology to improve our lives and make it grow. We have the resource to make it happen and still India and China which can lead the world in renewables are shying from it. Take the case of solar powered street lamps….cant we get economies of scales in India and China to make them cheap? Why do we always have to lag behind west? Why cant the east for once grab the opportunity and decide to lead the way….

It is not about blame game… what we did or they did and we don’t get to do has nothing to do with the situation. The situation is that West messed it and we have a historic opportunity to address it.

Copenhagen was not Hopenhagen but if India and China want to lead they will have to make Mexico a success with binding and aggressive emissions cuts agreed.

The City Falls Into Darkness

Two weeks ago the city of Sharjah fell into darkness. 80% of the city had no electricity for hours. Soon after the cracks within the system appeared and it looks that either lack of maintenance or lack of supply resulted in this overload and trip. Since then the whole of city's industrial area plunges into darkness at night. With the temperatures soaring beyond 40C in the day and settling to humid 30C - 32C at night people are having an uncomfortable days till the soaring summer heat begins to subside later this month.

While everyone in the city is complaining one thing that I still fail to understand is why does the business go on as usual till late at night. Cant businesses close for the day at sunset so it can provide the much needed relief to the system and people can have electricity in their houses. Why is their a need for miles and miles of lit roads. It seems humans have mastered the act of complaining and are adamant to change demanding all but not ready to give anything in return.

This leads me to the pertinent question of our times..... Climate Change. The intense human greed and quest to have all the material wealth has led us to strains in only habitable planet and with obvious signs of distress just like not turning off an extra light in our houses we aren't ready to reduce our demands for even greater and bigger things.

While alot has to be done to regulate collective reaction of mankind on the issue we eventually have to realize individual leadership on the issue. If we can control ourselves in small things collectively the step will lead to great good.

In G20 the leaders who represent us the 3rd world have been bickering over who should do what... again a typical blame game. Instead of fighting if we can capture the advantage the 3rd world for the first time can lead rather than being led by the West.

We are on the road to Copenhagen.... how our leaders will react to it will largely depend on the way we would be embracing the problems at hand. It seems mankind has learnt one thing from the animal kingdom.... to deny reality we bury our heads in the sand....

We have a choice... keep our eyes closed or stand up and snatch the opportunity....