THIS Wednesday is World Environment Day. It will be just a one-day affair as it has been since 1973, when it was first celebrated globally. One day of showing care for the environment and 364 days of degradation of the same?
We should stop this nonsense and acknowledge that we are the problem, not the Earth. And by "we" it is meant the 193 nations and the eight billion people of the Earth.
Start with nations. Shockingly, a few — advanced though they are in many destructive sciences — deny the link between Earth's degradation and a warming Earth. Wanting to be excused for their climate-changing sins, they demand: "show me the science". And nature shows them the signs of climate science.
Fires, droughts and floods. From Australia to Zimbabwe, all will face catastrophic consequences. It is as if the world is rehearsing on Earth for the real hell to come in the hereafter.
Climate Action Tracker, a non-governmental organisation, stated in its December update that countries were chalking up a shortfall of between 19 and 22 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent in their 2030 target. What this means is that the Earth is going to be 2.5ºC warmer than the pre-industrial level in less than six years.
An Earth so warmed up is not going to be very liveable. Humanity will be challenged like never before. According to the United Nations-linked Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) interim report, at 1.5ºC warming, 14 per cent of the Earth's population will be exposed to severe heatwaves once every five years.
Raise this to 2ºC, then 37 per cent of the eight billion people will be exposed to severe heatwaves. At 3ºC, the Earth will be utterly unlivable for humans.
A warmer Earth also has a devastating impact on biodiversity and ecosystems. Even at 1.5ºC, the IPCC revealed that we would lose insects, plants and vertebrates on an unprecedented scale. So what can countries do?
As they work on weaning themselves off fossil fuels, renewable ways to produce energy must be found.
Technology already exists, but resources aren't being pooled to make it affordable for all. Ditto technology to extract carbon emissions from the atmosphere. Nations also must come together to restore the planet to at least a semblance of what it was.
As the nations adapt and adopt, we, as individuals — as commercial creatures or otherwise — must do the same. The Earth is meant to be for all forms of life, including wildlife.
It is therefore heartbreaking to learn of the deaths of four elephants in Kampung Sri Timor in Kahang, Kuang, Johor, in what appears to be a result of human-wildlife conflict. Humans think the Earth is theirs for the taking. Let's be blunt. We humans are the intruders, not the animals. Staying with the terrible tragedy of the elephants, we ask: whose portion of the planet was it before the farmers showed up?
Didn't the herd of 20 elephants roam there undisturbed before? Commerce must never trump compassion like this. The humane thing to have done was to get the authorities to relocate the animals, not to kill them.
Whose Earth is it anyway? Certainly not ours. Knowing this and acting accordingly will save us.