Hi everyone. Today I am going to talk about a very sobering subject. Protecting our Mother- Earth. In Indian mythology, Earth is considered the mother of all living things. But one of it’s own creatures, humans, have polluted her and we are the only ones that can prevent further deterioration. In an UN sponsored climate conference in 2010, it was decided that an average increase in temperature of 2°C above pre-industrial levels will be devastating to the environment and the effects could be irreversible. The pre-industrial levels refer to the temperature in 1750 when the industrial revolution began and the use of fossil fuels became more commonplace. On November 10, 2015, we reached the halfway point. According to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) we are headed towards uncharted territory at frightening speed. The warming in temperature is a direct result of increase in concentration of the three greenhouse gases: carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide. These gases are the creation of human beings. These gases are produced by industrial, agricultural and domestic activities. The amount of carbon dioxide went above 400 parts per million in the spring of 2015.

So what is the big deal about the temperature rising by 1°C. Well to put things in perspective, a million years ago when the Earth came out of the ice age, global temperature rose 4-7°C in 5000 years. In the past century alone, the temperature rose 0.7°C, which is roughly about 10 times the rate of temperature increase during the ice age. In the future, if we continue along this path, the rate will be 20 times faster. If there was no human influence, the Earth’s temperature would still increase, but the increase will be very slow. The increase that we have seen is highly unusual.

What are the consequences of this? It will lead to hotter summers, colder winters, melting of the ice caps and rise in ocean levels. There will be an increase natural disasters like hurricanes, tornadoes and snow storms. Many island nations are actually worried that the rise in water levels can submerge their islands and want the UN to lower the threshold to 1.5°C. This is also going to have a severe economic impact due to money spent in recovering from natural disasters.

I sincerely believe that in our lifetime, we will see disastrous effects. I read somewhere that the Amazon rainforest will be gone by 2050. That is only 35 years from now. I think we need to do something about it. The politicians are not going to do anything about it. They keep having meetings which don’t produce any action items and only compromises. Many prominent billionaires like Bill Gates, Sir Richard Branson are donating significant sums of money to sponsor research into technologies aimed at slowing or reversing climate change. But we need to do something too. Take public transit to work or school. If you can afford it, buy electric or hybrid cars. Sign-up for electronic delivery of bills. Follow the three R’s: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. Insulate your house, change old windows. Buy organic produce, try to be vegetarian at least once during the week. Simple steps will add up to giant steps and perhaps we can hope to reverse the damage.