THE CLIMATE CHANGE THREAT IS REAL

The earth was created as an organism like me and you, with a sense of equilibrium and engineered towards maintaining that equilibrium to be alive, stable and sustainable. Too much of this will affect that and vice versa. For over 4 billion years since the earth creation it has been evolving and perfecting, from a molten lava to cooled rocks, appearance of water through which life evolves and dominates every inch of the planet in one form or the other. Life adapted remarkably on the planet, on land, sea, air and even deep down in the hot bowels of the earth.

Throughout this history, there had been changes in climate of the planet blowing hot and cold as a swing of pendulum. The extreme low temperatures led to Ice-Age and a variety of factors led to the global dipping of the temperature, chief among them were the shifting of plate tectonics and variation of the earth orbit. Life faced extreme difficulties during ice-age some species even going extinct as a result of that. Even the famous Noah flood during the early tenancy of humans on the planet culminates with an ice-age, one of the five such periods in the history of waxing and waning of temperatures that resulted in ice-ages.

The next Ice-Age we are facing, which signs had already been manifest, is going to be very different with all known ice-ages in the past simply because for the first time it is being triggered not by natural phenomenon but through human commission. God in his infinite design has structured the world in such a way that it has a protected roof blanketing the earth to maintain the natural circle of climate and weather. This roof, what we call the ozone layer, is located between 20-25 kilometers above the earth and extending for about 60 miles above the earth atmosphere composing of air made of a gas known as ozone (0₃) which was a variety of normal oxygen created in the atmosphere by the same thing that it will eventually protect us from, lethal ultraviolet radiation from the sun and space. Cosmic rays bombardment of ordinary oxygen transforms it into ozone, which in turn reflects back harmful cosmic rays back to space instead of reaching the earth. Without the ozone to reflect back the harmful cosmic rays bombarding the earth, reaching us at their full intensity could be catastrophic to life on earth as they directly affects mutations. Without the ozone layer life wouldn’t have been possible on earth in the first place and as the materialistic greed of humanity continues unchecked in depleting forest and multiplication of industrial gases, punches hole in the ozone layer. One of such holes in the ozone layer, as scientist had determined is about 20.7 million square kilometers (that is the size of Nigeria’s land size 21 times).

The puncture of the ozone layer is attributed to human activities on earth since the beginning of industrial revolution in Europe as more and more chloroplorocarbons (CFC) are released in the atmosphere which destroys ozone. The world temperature had risen 3 degrees from the pre-industrial age and will continue to rise making the globe warmer and warmer. Another factor is deforestation by cutting trees across the world for industries, residence, farmlands, highways and other forms of forest reclamation. It is approximated that every minute a football field size of a forest is being cleared in the world without a fraction of it being replaced.

At present we are beginning to see catastrophic result of this climate change especially in Australia where several thousands of bushfires had been raging for months. We are witnessing an unprecedented melting of ice and glaciers in the Artic circle and Antarctica. The draughts, floods and desertification in Africa and depletion of water resources across the world.

Our quest and hunger in consumerism through industries like, petroleum, coal, cement, timber etc is choking off the planet and sending it towards self annihilation. Certainly we cannot do away with our greed but at least we can rechannel our modus operandi in satisfying that greed through the adoption of renewable and cleaner energy like solar, wind, water etc.

The impact of climate is certainly going to be felt the most in countries like Nigeria and the sooner government and the public rise to the challenge the better we can mitigate the oncoming storm. We must start thinking of refocusing on harnessing solar and wind energy for our power as we have abundant sunshine in most part of the country. The Northern States must revive the green-wall initiative that will see a shelterbelt stretching from Borno to Kebbi. We should emulate one East African state that mandate secondary school students must plant a tree as part of their school leaving certificate. Our traditional rulers must get involved in tree-planting campaign as they used to do in the past. Desertification has been running at a pace of one kilometer a year in some regions and if unchecked, one day it could reach the ocean. In the 1970s Late Audu Bako initiated the shelterbelt in the old Kano State along Dambatta and Kazaure and it is evident today those shelter belt had arrested the desertification of the area as they have become thick mini-forest now. Had this policy been uniform in the north the topography of the whole region would have been entirely different from swhat it is today, we must replicate it.

Renewable energy and tree planting are the easiest and surest way if we are ever going to win against the catastrophic threat we are facing from climate change, which is going to trigger mass extinction sooner than expected if we continue to fold our arms.