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Nature's own apocalypse
By Carlton Samarajiwa
August this year taught us a lesson much sooner than was foretold. From Portugal in the West to Croatia in the East, Europe experienced an unprecedented heat wave as if Nature was taking its revenge on the human race. The earth was not just getting warmer; it was sizzling.

Global warming has been a long predicted disaster. Now it has become a reality. In the 1980s, the global average temperature was only 58.1 degrees Fahrenheit and by 1980 it had climbed steeply and steadily. 1988 was the hottest year on record, and Central China the worst affected with temperatures soaring to between 96.8 and 104 degrees Fahrenheit.

North America too suffered, with grain harvests dropping below domestic consumption for the first time in history. The environmental catastrophe had begun to take its toll: the natural ecosystem, biological diversity, and many of the structures and institutions that man had grown to depend on such as irrigation systems, sewage systems, settlement patterns and food production were all disrupted.

Unheeded warnings
Man alone is the culprit behind the ever-increasing threat of global warming. The noxious gases and fumes our civilized world releases into our atmosphere will linger in the stratosphere for years to come. Generations yet unborn will inherit a world they will find intolerable because of the sins of their fathers. The older generation must see themselves as stewards of the earth who have borrowed it from their children.

The sun's ultraviolet rays are penetrating our earth more than ever before. The root cause is the increasing volume of carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxides and industrial gases known as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) that we are emitting into the atmosphere. Man has raised the carbon dioxide level in the atmosphere from 280 to 340 parts per million since 1860. By 2050, the concentration of CO2 and CFCs will double and the earth's temperature will rise by as much as 9 degrees Fahrenheit.

Alarm signals were given several decades ago by the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Academy of Sciences, but like other warnings, they have gone unheeded. And thus August this year became for mankind, much earlier than predicted, both the cruelest and the hottest month.

Heat waves
Britain sweltered in record 100 plus degrees Fahrenheit temperatures as bookmakers paid out hefty sums to thousands of punters who had correctly predicted that temperatures would soar above 100 F for the first time.

In France, the death toll from the heat wave exceeded an estimated 10,000. Forest fires ravaged the countryside. Lucien Abenhaim, director of the national health authority, offered to resign, but how could one man's action compensate for the folly of a whole race?

In Italy, the devastating heat pushed temperatures as high as 104 degrees Fahrenheit since the beginning of June and lasted three months. In Genoa, church authorities permitted funerals on Sundays, an unprecedented arrangement to meet the high demand for funeral services.

Pope John Paul II called for prayers in the manner that tribes of yore prayed for rain in times of drought. "I exhort all to raise to the Lord fervent entreaties so that He may grant the relief of rain to the thirsty Earth," His Holiness entreated.

Damage control
A disturbing feature is that global warming puts at greater risk the Third World than the First. This is ironic because it is the industries of the First World that makes the four billion poor of the Third World suffer. They are vulnerable to global warming because many of them rely on farming for a living. Their rice harvests dwindle as rainfall drops and temperatures rise.

On the other hand, Asian nations should improve energy and transport efficiency and think seriously about reforestation. More than 13 million trees are cut down annually in Sri Lanka. Our industrialization should not mean a repetition of the First World's pollution mistakes on a larger scale.

For us in Sri Lanka, it is not only peace and the fruits of peace that will ensure economic development but also the protection of our environment. The environment is, after all, where we all live and it has to be protected for economic development is what is done in order to improve our lives and living in that environment.

Will the summer of 2004 be the same, or worse than, 2003, which has indications of what is in store for us? Will the ozone layer become thinner and the greenhouse gases thicker? And will man be content just to say, "Phew, it's hot, isn’t it?" as "the very soul of the earth", in Leonard Woolley's words, "loses its virtue"?

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