Whether it is the so called La Nina or any other weather phenomenon, it is now clearly evident that the problem of climate change is here to stay and all of us living on this fragile planet will have to open our eyes to this new reality. The devastating floods in Australia, Sri Lanka or the deadly landslides in Brazil are the tragic side of climate change caused by extreme weather patterns, which according to scientists will become more and more regular. In fact, if we look at the last ten years or so, a trend has developed whereby natural disasters are increasingly wreaking havoc on land and its people. Earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, droughts, landslides, forest fires, storms and every imaginable natural disaster has taken place across countries, continents and impacting lives of people of all races and nationalities. Clearly climate change does not discriminate. Whether you are rich or poor, Christian or Muslim, American or Bangladeshi nationality, the impact caused by climate change has started to affect you, whoever or wherever you are. Let us therefore first of all acknowledge that climate changing is a common problem, which will require both individual and collective effort besides a pro-active government to address issues and find solutions.
The very nature of such disasters is that no one knows when or where it will strike next. Given this scenario of uncertainty, the only thing humans can actually do is to firstly prepare through disaster mitigation efforts and secondly take preventive steps in the form of climate change mitigation efforts. Both these two kinds of mitigation efforts will be required to prevent such natural calamities and secondly even if they do occur, we can be better prepared to deal with it. As far as disaster mitigation goes, much importance has been given including sufficient flow of funds for setting up proper infrastructure to deal with disasters. However it is anyone’s guess as to how funds are being utilized and also the state of preparedness to deal with disasters. Our governments need to wake up to the seriousness of the impending dangers ahead. For this they need to get their act together.
All of us are aware of the fact that the earthquake in Haiti on January 12, 2010, killed 250,000 Haitians and rendered 1.6 million homeless besides offcourse destroying homes and damaging huge amount of property. Compared this with a similar earthquake striking Chile on February 27, 2010. This was the largest recorded for the year but fatalities were less than 600. While the Chile quake was much larger in magnitude than the quake in Haiti, experts attribute the huge difference in death rates to strict building codes and standards in Chile as one of the factors. The point is this: Besides the need to urgently act on climate change mitigation, every country including local communities and governments must be prepared to deal with disasters so that its impact is minimized. Natural disasters can neither be fully predicted nor can it be stopped. In such a predicament the most sensible thing to do would be to remain in a state of preparedness. What has been our governments doing to prepare people for such disaster like floods, landslides, earthquake, disease outbreaks etc. Also what do our elected representatives have to say on preventing future disasters? Can someone in authority please let the public know on the State’s preparedness to deal with an impending outbreak of disease or a devastating natural calamity? If our responses on these queries are on the negative, then we need to wake up so that we are prepared to deal with disasters.
