A few weeks ago the Australian Koala Foundation declared the Koala bear as functionally extinct. With just about 80,000 left, there is not enough adult left to propagate the species. The news got wide coverage in media, but unfortunately, little notice was taken of it. The other news about the emergence of a lake on the Alps became just a matter of curiosity. But the panic button got pressed when Chennai went dry of potable water.

The crisis that has befallen us across the globe is entirely anthropogenic or, in other words, the creation of man. Why are Koalas facing extinction? Because relentless urbanisation and commercial exploitation of nature have destroyed the habitat of the Australian marsupial which essentially means that we have mindlessly destroyed natural resource that was meant to sustain us.

This story is getting repeated across the width and breadth of the globe leading to a precipitous decline of biodiversity. Unfortunately, we do not understand the meaning of an impending crisis, unless the crisis knocks on our door. The world is losing 2.6 trillion US dollar in GDP – about India’s GDP – every year because of pollution. This is happening because of sick days, medical bills and reduced agricultural outputs. By 2060 the number of pre-matured death resulting from environmental destruction is feared to exceed 9 million.

In order to rush towards more and more prosperity, we are destroying the nature that sustains the natural cycle. The USA has not only opted out of the Global conference on pollution, rubbing salt on the pollution wounds it has decided to ease environmental curbs on fossil fuels like coal mining. It has also allowed oil pipelines to be laid across a pristine area in Alaska that was considered absolutely a sacrosanct patch in the bible of environment protection.

The causes of global warming that is leading to the changes in the weather cycle are entirely our doing. The entire natural cycle is about interdependence. Trees are natural carbon sync. As we cut them down and exploit more and more fossil fuel we create rising carbon footprints that in turn lead to global warming.

What does global warming do to us? It starts by killing the weather that we are used to. Europe is getting warmer and Bengal is missing its rainy season while western India is getting swept by heavy rains. The sea level is rising and devastating storms are creating havocs more frequently than mankind had ever known. The sea level is rising threatening to inundate large chunks of land. Polar glaciers have started melting that may ultimately lead to the total extinction of polar bears and Eskimos trying to survive in higher temperature.

The economic crisis is the more imminent one. The so-called agricultural belt of the world is now threatened with lower production and land productivity because of drying up of rivers and underground water resource. The rise in temperature is also unleashing chronic diseases across species, including us the human being.

Nations in which poverty is chronic will suffer the most. From firewood to shelter, they are heavily dependent on nature. Should the weather changes their challenge to survive will be the most. With the agriculture belt nursing the maximum number of poor, it doesn’t take a huge intellect to understand the crisis. The inter-governmental panel on climate change (IPCC), 2018, has warned that we just have 12 years to reverse climate change. After that, it will be too late to do anything about it and it is feared that it will put the existence of even our race tenuous.

Its time, we care….