Press Release – Climate change will kill all of us
Posted on June 29th, 2015

by Asanga Abeyagoonasekera

 Actually, the forest is complete life, and it is the forest that gives strength to human beings to fight for the welfare of humanity.
Chief Almir Narayamoga Surui tribe leader

A father carries his three year old dead child from the heat wave in Karachi, Pakistan. More than 700 lives have been taken due to the highest recorded temperature in fifteen years 44.8 degrees celsius in Pakistan and more than 2000 dead in the neighboring India. Karachi a city of 20 million people who lives with limited access to electricity, limited for only few hours a day, the rich has got the generators and most of them would survive while poor has no option but to die as they cant switch on any cooling device. The demand of the 20m people in Karachi cannot be met by the electricity grids, unable to keep up with the demand.The technologically sophisticated globalized world we live still unable to protect these innocent victims affected from the heat wave. It is a sad plight to see people being killed for heat. We have global leaders and top corporate sector who earn billions who talk of the values of human life but unable to do anything.

climateKills

According to a prominent scientist David Auerbach Humans will be extinct in 100 years due to overcrowding, declining resources and climate change”. The goal for the century is to keep the temperature below 2°C will be difficult with the current trends. A 5°C increase, as predicted to occur by 2100 at the moment, would cause widespread flooding, famine, drought and mass extinction according to Auerbach.

This author at the foothills of Davos in January was fortunate to interact and listen to Al Gore former US Vice President who spoke to the young global leaders, explaining what CO2 does to the climate and what we all need to do to protect and create a world for the present and the next generation. One hundred and ten million tons of CO2 every 24 hours is released to our atmosphere every day which seriously needs a change in our individual way of life, specially to reduce man made pollution around the world. The affect of climate change to Island nations will be drastic and its time we all take  serious measures to curb environment pollution. Not further going towards projects such s Norochcholai coal power, since the entire world is moving away from coal and transitioning towards renewable energy the area we should concentrate when making future decisions. Private sector a key contributor to our economy should make protecting the environment a top priority including to their corporate social responsibility.

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Asanga Abeyagoonasekera with Chief Almir of Surui from Amazon Forest

This author met with another environment activist, tribal leader Chief Almir from Amazon forest at the World Entrepreneurship Forum. He is using google earth to protest Amazon forest and his indigenous Surui tribe. The Surui have put aside their bows and arrows and taken up new technology charting the Surui territory using Google Earth software, annotating the reserve with tags and photos marking villages, hunting grounds, and sacred sites, along with areas targeted by logging and mining companies. Outsiders could see the effects of deforestation and the attacks on tribal land. Chief Almir hoped to plant one million trees. A great individual using technology to protect the environment.

The role is for all of us at Government, civil society, international organizations and everyone has an individual role to save their own children and the future unborn children. Individuals should be encouraged to use public transport, foot cycles and walking in city limits. Government should focus to provide infrastructure facilities required for this. Limitation of vehicle imports and to encourage comfortable public transport to urban areas should be considered. The import tax should be reduced for electric vehicles and people should be encouraged with incentives given to consume less harmful products for the environment. Importance of renewable energy and climate change should be a taught with practical examples at schools and to all stake holders of our society. UN Secretary General, Ban Ki Moon clearly states It’s not only government. Government cannot do it alone. The UN cannot do it alone. There should be full partnership… then we should have civil society coming together. Even one normal citizen – they have a role to play.” Saving our environment should be top of our agenda. Politicians should be an example for the people such as Ida Meier Auken Norwegian parliamentarian who use her foot cycle to goto parliament and fights to keep a better environment in her own country. The upcoming election in Sri Lanka people should consider voting for candidates who are environmentally responsible and does minimum harm to our environment without any banners, posters and usage of recyclable material. Its important we address and take small steps to minimize this climate catastrophe which will kill all of us.

(This article was first published by the Colombo Telegraph

https://www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/climate-change-will-kill-all-of-us/)

3 Responses to “Press Release – Climate change will kill all of us”

  1. Fran Diaz Says:

    Asanga,

    We thank you for the ‘wake up’ call to one and all, coming from your article.

    ——————–

    Human beings are cutting the branch they are sitting on. They are squabbling over petty things and wasting their lives when matters of survival are at stake.

    Furthermore to what you have stated here, I read in the news that 1/2 mile wide meteor is headed toward Earth and due to collide in another 100 yrs or so. The 100 yr mark seems a crucial point in timing for the destruction of Planet Earth, unless countries get together to solve the grave problems building up.

  2. Cerberus Says:

    Thank you Asanga for bringing these matters to the notice of the public. The biggest culprit for global warming are the affluent countries who do not seem to have the answers. People like the UNP Govt want to take us to the same type of out dated thinking regarding the economy. Europe has struck a good balance and are more socialist. Germany is a socialist and is doing very well. They initiated a program to give a guaranteed price for power generated by green energy for the next 20 years. As a result many of the private sector have invested heavily in Solar panels and Wind farms. They are in the process of closing down the older Nuclear energy plants. There are some talks given by Dr. Richard Wolff on YouTube explaining why rampant Capitalism is dying. He is suggesting the solution is to democratize the work place as Germany has done. In Northern Spain there is a Corporation by the name of Mondragon which is an umbrella Corporation to a large number of cooperatives. Even in USA there are many cooperatives. Also remember if the Global Warming does not kill the planet there is a meteor which is about ½ mile long heading our way. It is about 100 years away. But we need to unite and organize to stop this meteor. Sri Lanka really needs smart young people like you who can see far and have a vision.

  3. Lorenzo Says:

    SL CANNOT do ANYTHING to stop it. SL should make use of it to advance its interests and eliminate its separatists.

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