Climate change reason for diseases

Kolkata: Branding climate change as earth being in the grip of "fever", leading Indian experts Friday here apprised students of its reality and called for better "climate literacy."

At the "Public-Experts Interaction Event" on climate change in India, well-known educator V. Rajamani explained the gravity of the situation to students of top universities and colleges of the city.

"Earth is in the grip of fever, India has fever and then culprit is climate change.

"Most of us have improper understanding of climate change and it is real. Climate change is real, not just in other countries but it is happening in our own backyard," he said.

The lecture was organized by Indian National Science Academy (INSA) and West Bengal Academy of Science and Technology with support from the IndianAInstitute of Chemical Biology here.

Rajamani is conducting similar workshops across the country.

Through statistics pooled from the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Rajamani showed eager students how temperature has being varying across the ages.

Simplifying the data, G.C. Debnath, director of the Regional Meteorological Centre here, said: "IMD has seen that the minimum temperature (night time temperature) is increasing in a faster way than the maximum day time temperature.

"This is also causing major problems."

In addition, the experts shed light on some of the other indicators of climate change including increase in intensity of cyclones, more instances of large floods as well as on causes such as greenhouse gases, emissions and deforestation.

"Why should you be concerned? There are floods in areas where flood history is not common; there are droughts in places where rainfall was good earlier; all these anomalies are in front of you.

"Students should know what is happening, be climate literate and accept the facts so that they can help fight the battle in the future," said Rajamani, a fellow of INSA.