People should work for climate change

Greta Thunberg, Swedish teenager sailed on a yacht with zero carbon foot prints crossing the Atlantic to participate in the rally on climate change on September 20 and in the UN climate action summit on 23rd September at New York .

She has been consistently raising her voice against climate change and has become voice of the younger generation drawing world attention to climate change which is threatening our very survival.

Meanwhile scientists in Iceland were busy erecting a memorial in August to Okjokull the first Iceland glacier to melt.

In a memorial captioned 'letter to the future' they mentioned Okjokull is the first glacier to lose its status and in another 200 years all Iceland glaciers are expected to follow.

On the other side of the coin Donald Trump refuses to acknowledge the impact of climate change . Brazil Bolsonoro is overseeing the one of the worst forest fires leading to large scale deforestation of the Amazon forests.

It is scientifically established the greenhouse gases lead to higher temperatures warming up the earth. Climate change results in extreme weather, heatwave, rising sea levels, wildfires and ozone depletion.

It may have temporary beneficial effect in some areas in terms of increase in the frost-free season but in the long run results are going to be disastrous.

The Paris agreement stipulates that global temperatures should not rise more than 2 degree centigrade above the pre- industrial level. To achieve this there should not only be no new emissions but the existing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere also needs to be removed.

One of the ways of doing this is by planting more and more trees which will absorb the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Though there are other methods of capturing and injecting carbons into the deep geological strata, planting of trees is the time-tested way of capturing the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

But to reach the limit set by the Paris agreement this requires huge task of planting trees in an area as big as India. But on the contrary the way the mankind is progressing the existing forests are being destroyed at a fast pace leave alone planting new forests at such a massive scale.

At the centre of the whole discussion most important point that comes back whether one likes it or not is whether the present development model followed by the West and now being repeated in the rest of the world is sustainable in the long run?

if there is a consensus on this the action plan both in terms of reducing emissions as well as decreasing the present levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere can be implemented.

Since there is no agreement on this all climate related discussions end up as action plans of wish lists unachievable right from the start itself.

Then of course the big question of who pays for the measures The developing countries want the developed countries to foot the bill since it is they who polluted and prospered.

The developed countries are reluctant to do that and some like Donald Trump do not even want to acknowledge that a problem like this exists.

But independent of the governments there's a lot people can do if they are convinced that this is a major problem facing the humanity and can affect all of us.

Conscious decisions at micro level of the style of living, food habits, by people across the world can make a substantial difference for climate change.

I wish the climate rally also set forth a set of resolutions what should be done and what should not be done to protect the climate which is important not just for the human race but for the existence of life on the earth.

Given the iniquitous levels of development between different countries, and the desire of the less developed to catch up, and developed reluctance to reduce their levels of comfort and also pay for the pollution is going to make fighting the climate change a losing battle from the start itself.

It is for the people to ignore the governments and start working on choices of lifestyle which can have any impact on the climate change.