Whatever
your job description, as a parent or an adult you are a tutor and
influencer. It’s accepted that we learn
better from mistakes and things running amok than from success. How we behave teaches more than words
unsupported by deed, and nowhere is this demonstrated better than the state of
the planet. If governments can have
State of the Nation addresses, then the planet deserves one too.
I was
blessed beyond my imagining to be selected to attend the first African Climate
Reality Leadership course held in March at the Sandton Convention Centre. Listening to veteran Climate Reality leaders
such as Al Gore and Kumi Naidoo, Dania Gurira, Patrick Ngowi, Evans Wadongo and
Ikal Angelei amongst many others was more than inspiring to me and hundreds of
other delegates – we felt truly at home amongst likeminded souls.
Whether a professional
environmentalist or an ordinary person whose interest and passion for the
wellbeing of our earth beats strongly through your veins, nearly 900 people
were held spellbound for three days. Everyone took so much away with them,
inspired and motivated to continue on our path.
In 2006, An
Inconvenient Truth woke a slumbering public up to climate change and caused a
flurry amongst politicians and scientists, many eagerly disputing the film, the
science and the man. In 2014, this group
of dissenters, referred to as climate denialists, is melting faster than the
arctic ice pack as scientific evidence continues to land on the climate change
side of the scale. And weather events throwing
up chaos, change and confusion across the planet are now the norm.
So what,
then, is the State of the Planet in 2014?
- - 2013
was the 37th consecutive year with the average global temperature
above the 20th century average.
- - February
2014 was the 348th consecutive month with a global temperature above
the 20th century average
- - Higher
temperatures and warmer oceans evaporate more water vapour into the sky. Global
humidity has increased by 4% in 30 years.
Every 1⁰C increase in air
temperature increases the capacity of the atmosphere over the ocean to hold
water vapour by 7%. This water vapour
has nowhere to go but down, hence heavier downpours of rain.
I’m not
going to attempt to share three twelve hour day’s worth of lectures and
discussions in depth with you here, that’s an impossible task. All I can do is to spark your interest to
investigate and research this further yourself.
Climate
change is a fact, a reality we are living.
Respected scientific research from across the globe continues to heap
more proof onto the climate change pile – the facts are indisputable.
The
questions and the arguments now are about the way forward – how to secure food
and water for mankind into the future.
Renewable energy, resource conservation and safeguarding what we need to
survive as a species.
Wars have
always been fought over resources of some kind – land, slaves, minerals, oil,
and access to water as a transport medium.
Al Gore
maintains that the war in Darfur will be seen as the world’s first war over
food. Be assured that it will not be the
last ‘food’ war, and since we can’t drink oil or eat coal, a time will come
when fighting over mineral resources will take a backseat to waging war over
drinking water and arable land.
One of the
most exciting thoughts I took away from the conference was the conviction that
the solutions will be found by Generation X & Y. Not merely because their predecessors have
left them no alternative but to eventually begin hugging bunnies and clean up
our mess, but because the future expansion of knowledge, research and
development lies in renewable energy, food and water security.
Man has
discovered that the earth isn’t flat, landed on the moon, created babies in
test tubes and cloned sheep. So what’s
left for this and future generations to change and discover?
Listening to the bright and enthusiastic
ideas and thoughts of the students from schools such as St Stithians and Beaulieu
who attended the conference and the passionate speech from the young Egyptian
delegate describing the climate change computer game he is busy inventing, it
is obvious that these young people don’t see green living and thinking as some
sort of tedious punishment for their parents ‘sins’ – they are embracing the opportunity
to invent, discover and change society and the world around them.
