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Flood-'18: Awakener!

By S Mukhtar. Dated: 7/11/2018 12:57:19 AM

"Uncle."
"Yes dear."
"Flood-'18 dangers over…?"
"Yeah: All congrats!"
"And all thanks to Almighty! But…"
"What but?"
"Flood-'14 images still are vivid in our eyes…floods so recurrent now…why?"
"Dear, yes that phenomenon has its causes. Firstly, water catchments areas have decreased, O considerably. Lakes areas have diminished, holding capacity of many water bodies has gone down, wetlands have been drastically reduced by building houses etc. there. A study in 2004 revealed that Srinagar and its suburbs have lost 55% area of water bodies, drainage channels, and wetlands; down that, between 1911 and 2004, the area of wetlands alone went down from 13,426 to 6,407 hectares; and O yes, the situation now must be far worse. Secondly, weather becoming freaky, the frequency of natural cloudbursts is markedly and steadily increasing; for instance, 11 cloudbursts we had in a few months in 2015."
"Uncle, climate change…any effect of that toward this recurrence of Kashmir floods?"
"Dear, yes. Freaky weather is one clear effect of climate change. One New Delhi based think tank clearly said that the intense rainfall that led to the devastating flood of 2014 was definitely induced by climate change. Sunita Narain, Director General of Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), put it beautifully thus: '…The Indian government must discard its ostrich-like policy and get out of its denial mode. We will have to see the linkages between climate change and the events such as those unfolding in J&K. We will have to accept that climate change is going to affect us more and more in the future. We will, therefore, have to start preparing to adapt to the changing climate.' True, continued climate change may devastate us, Mother Earth too, all too soon!"
"And Uncle…"
"Yes dear."
"Who after all are responsible for this steadily oncoming climate change?"
"Dear, no country of the world…I may say no individual… now is that has not been of long contributing to pollution and thereby to climate change. Yes, the developing and the developed countries' contributions are indeed unnerving. Who will control whom, - all are sinners, the mightier the bigger. Heartrending to say that, consequently, we may have to face diverse ills and evils more and more! Recurrent severe floods may be but just one!"
"Uncle…I am afraid."
"Fear is no remedy. Remedies the entire world has to think about and enact. Flood-'14 was a killer: Flood-'18 was more an awakener. May it not be that wake up we still don't. But yes…alas, alas…that awakening seems too distant still!"