Is a solution within reach? Will the Kyoto Protocol, making targets legally binding, be replaced with a Copenhagen Accord pledging actions at domestic level? Was the tweaked information on climate change as revealed by a leak in UK media a farce or reality! Don’t know whether G77 will disunite under the difference of opinion and issues! When will the reality dawn on us (will it be the difficult way)….from where there is no going back…or rather making it a Hobson’s choice.
Only time will tell. But what we, at this point of time can do is contribute our bit to reduce our carbon footprint.For this, what is imminent is firstly understand what this hullabaloo is all about. This is not a media hype but something that requires an immediate corrective action at n
ot just the levels of nations but also from every individual even if it may appear like a drop in the ocean.What is required is a genuine and sincere effort. All said....but what to do! What has just been written appears more like preaching and may now even sound little bit cliché. It is high time all people on this beautiful planet realize that for us there is no second home. This earth is our only habitat and haven and we have the option of either to live in it or die with it! Choice is entirely ours.
What prompts me to state the above ,springs directly from my own observation of the clearly visible effects of climate change back in my hometown Nainital, a beautiful hill-station in Uttarakhand “Simply Heaven”.Though the effects seem to have been compounded by the increased human habitation over the years ,but the climate change has been a major contributor. Gone are the days when the depth of snow that covered the beautiful town would be reported in feet;a thick blanket of white that the people would wake up to, and it would snow for days together.But now the residents and also the tourists are disappointed to not even be a witness to a white Christmas at times. Now it is in cm that the depth of snow is reported, if at all it snows.
As years passed by ,there came times when I would be overjoyed when my mother would come and tell me late on a winter evening that it was snowing. I would relinquish the warmth of my bed jumping out of it in a flash of a second and aim for the window to see the flakes of snow falling against the light of the lamppost. How I loved the snow! Coming back I would question my mother whether it would snow for long enough for the snow to deposit on the ground as a white cover and not wash away as slush in a matter of hours, hoping for her to reply in the affirmative. And when I woke up , the first thing that I would ask her would be whether it was still snowing! Imagine my disappointment when she would tell me that it had snowed only for a few hours at night and the snow on the ground did not last long.
O how I loved playing in the snow! How I loved making snowman out of it! Pelting balls of snow at each other when I played with my friends! My childhood is replete with such memories, which would be relived each time it snowed. But with the snowy winters gradually bidding adieu to my hometown I find those cherished memories fading away!Alas, each time I go to my hometown I find the summers warmer than what they used to be(with mirages on the metalled road), winters no more so chilling, rains not so incessant and the town more populated and dirty. The town no more offers the same level of serenity and calmness that once it used to.
A trip to my hometown does give me that peace of mind and soul and the solace that I crave for but also fills me with a strange feeling of disappointment and sense of loss as to what has become of my hometown!
Only time will tell. But what we, at this point of time can do is contribute our bit to reduce our carbon footprint.For this, what is imminent is firstly understand what this hullabaloo is all about. This is not a media hype but something that requires an immediate corrective action at n
ot just the levels of nations but also from every individual even if it may appear like a drop in the ocean.What is required is a genuine and sincere effort. All said....but what to do! What has just been written appears more like preaching and may now even sound little bit cliché. It is high time all people on this beautiful planet realize that for us there is no second home. This earth is our only habitat and haven and we have the option of either to live in it or die with it! Choice is entirely ours.What prompts me to state the above ,springs directly from my own observation of the clearly visible effects of climate change back in my hometown Nainital, a beautiful hill-station in Uttarakhand “Simply Heaven”.Though the effects seem to have been compounded by the increased human habitation over the years ,but the climate change has been a major contributor. Gone are the days when the depth of snow that covered the beautiful town would be reported in feet;a thick blanket of white that the people would wake up to, and it would snow for days together.But now the residents and also the tourists are disappointed to not even be a witness to a white Christmas at times. Now it is in cm that the depth of snow is reported, if at all it snows.
As years passed by ,there came times when I would be overjoyed when my mother would come and tell me late on a winter evening that it was snowing. I would relinquish the warmth of my bed jumping out of it in a flash of a second and aim for the window to see the flakes of snow falling against the light of the lamppost. How I loved the snow! Coming back I would question my mother whether it would snow for long enough for the snow to deposit on the ground as a white cover and not wash away as slush in a matter of hours, hoping for her to reply in the affirmative. And when I woke up , the first thing that I would ask her would be whether it was still snowing! Imagine my disappointment when she would tell me that it had snowed only for a few hours at night and the snow on the ground did not last long.
O how I loved playing in the snow! How I loved making snowman out of it! Pelting balls of snow at each other when I played with my friends! My childhood is replete with such memories, which would be relived each time it snowed. But with the snowy winters gradually bidding adieu to my hometown I find those cherished memories fading away!Alas, each time I go to my hometown I find the summers warmer than what they used to be(with mirages on the metalled road), winters no more so chilling, rains not so incessant and the town more populated and dirty. The town no more offers the same level of serenity and calmness that once it used to.
A trip to my hometown does give me that peace of mind and soul and the solace that I crave for but also fills me with a strange feeling of disappointment and sense of loss as to what has become of my hometown!
