So, on March 18th 2022, we had the melting of the Arctic and the Antarctic glaciers due to the highest seasonal increase in temperature at this time of the year on both poles on the same day. You don’t see this happening ever, it is an unusual event according to reports. Apart from those who are watching and measuring such anomalies and a few who are aware of the consequences of the same to the rest of the world, it doesn’t seem to have attracted much attention in the media.
Media has been abuzz with economic recovery and war reporting. Even the war reporting has been rather muted, as less reporting on the collective failure of supposed world leaders is better to sustain the image further. Economically for us in India, there is a meltdown in the immediate neighbourhood, Pakistan is going through yet another political crisis and Sri Lanka is economically unable to grapple with the stronghold of the Chinese aggression and maybe in the verge of losing sovereignty. And of course, we have had local elections and governments are being formed in some parts of the country and there is a new season of the large corporate sponsored cricketing tournament being started this week.
Media also made its own stories — there was a report released on the viewership ratings of various medium and news agencies competed with each other in announcing how they have fared well over and above their own expectations. The response to the data varied from generic thanks to the viewers to boisterous message to the investors that may have been seeking more accountability. Print and Visual media houses in the post-instagram world have convinced themselves that because they report supposed news, they themselves are newsworthy, and because they themselves are newsworthy, they are news and they keep reporting and responding to each other in the process. So, the responses to the survey and reactions from each other on the same preoccupied their minds.
Amidst this din, no one is bothered to understand what does the planetary over heating mean to us. It is as though there is no great hurry to think about such issues. The silence and self-serving nature of the media houses would contribute enormously to the overall destruction of living space for humanity eventually.
Another Summer is here and Northern India has seen a multi-fold increase in heat wave related deaths in the recent years. As per the Lancet report released with 2020 data reported India along with Brazil as two countries with the highest mortality due to heat wave, particularly among people who are over 65 yrs of age. Another report indicates that between 2013 and 2019, there was a 69% increase in the heat wave days across India.
The other big summer concern is the Forest Fires that happen across the country. A report in 2019 indicated that more than 21% of the Forests in the country are either highly or extreme fire prone. Apart from destroying the fragile and already vulnerable biodiversity, they also contribute to carbon emission by releasing the carbon from the biomass in the forest. Last April, the forest fires in Uttrakhand and Nepal was extreme and the inadequacy of the forest department in being able to contain the same was visible. The State of Forests, 2021 by the Govt. doesn’t talk about the Forest Fires per se and instead talks of building capacities utilizing technologies to monitor the same. Gadgets to measure has been a preoccupation of bureaucracy than prevention or mitigation measures.
A report from last year indicates that one of the key reasons was the trust deficit between the Forest Department and local communities that don’t have access to the forests. Indigenous communities have been asking for their rights to the forests since over a decade based on the Forest Rights Act, and yet the record of how many of them have been provided access according to Govt’s own admission is nothing to feel proud about with only 48% access granted according to their own data against the claims. It is also a pity that this is one data that is actually validated only based upon the claims and not actually on entitlements. In the meanwhile the Forest Conservation Act being revised with amendments has come in for criticism from several environmentalists as it opens up the forests for further exploitation.
While Climatologists grapple with how to interpret the simultaneous melting of the poles on the same day, this is an extreme weather condition as much as it will trigger more perhaps. As a Scientist in the article cited at the beginning of this post mentions, “The models have done a good job projecting the overall warming, but we’ve argued that extreme events are exceeding model projections. These events drive home the urgency of action.”
Time for action that doesn’t dilute existing safeguards, that prepares for the worst case scenario in capacity building while working real fast to avoid the same.
added on 31/03/2022 -- "...There have been 16,840 forest fire incidents in the country between March 28 and March 30, according to Forest Survey of India’s forest mapping." - https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/massive-fire-near-glaciated-area-of-parvati-valley-glaciologists-sound-alarm-101648667326223.html