International Earth Day on April 22:

Care for your world or face extinction by 2050

By Dhaneshi Yatawara

On April 22, 2013 - the International Earth Day - more than a billion people around the world will get together to harness the power to show the world the 'Face of Climate Change'.

This year, at least on the Earth Day, the world is putting an effort to focus to understand the face of climate change and to plan appropriate action to save the earth.

Though climate change can often seem remote and hazy, it has already started to irritate our lives. It is no more the problem belonging to our grandchildren. The question is, do we really have a clear idea of this major consequence which, as many believe, still has given the humans the space to right our wrongs. The name and concept of Earth Day was pioneered by John McConnell in 1969 at a UNESCO Conference in San Francisco.

He proposed March 21, 1970, the first day of spring in the northern hemisphere. This day of nature's equipoise was later sanctioned in a Proclamation signed by Secretary General U. Thant at the United Nations.

A month later a separate Earth Day was founded by United States Senator Gaylord Nelson as an environmental teach-in first held on April 22, 1970.

Frankly speaking, the earthlings have been fighting since 1970 in the name of Earth Day to protect the world from its own kind.

Considering the 12 hottest years of the world based on weather data of the world, 11 have been recorded after 1995. This is a result of the abnormal increase in the green house gases that preserve a supportive heat in the earth atmosphere. It is said by scientists that the average temperature of the earth would be 15 degrees Centigrade lower without natural greenhouse gases instead of the normal 33 degrees. Intensive agriculture is the main source of emissions of the Greenhouse gases - namely Methane and Nitrous Oxide. Growing consumption of meat and the increasing food requirements of the expanding population increases the greenhouse gas generation. It has been found by scientists that improved animal nutrition and manure management can slow methane and Nitrogen emissions. Compared to conventional methods, organic farming requires 20 percent less fossil energy to produce the same amount of crop.

Deforestation is a now well known factor responsible for 20 percent of human carbon dioxide emission which again lead to global warming. Rain forests once covered 14 percent of the earth surface which is now merely a 6 percent. The sustainable use of forests is crucial if the world to survive.

If the warming continues, global sea levels could rise 9 - 8 centimetres or more by 2100 creating a disaster in the world coastal areas. Alps mountain range of Europe are speculated to loose up to three quarters of their glaciers in this century. Loss of glaciers means less water, droughts and crop failures during heat waves.

With climate change, it is predicted that extreme precipitation events, floods and mudslides as well as heat waves and droughts will become more frequent. Within the next 100 years, climate change is likely to increase the frequency of extreme heat events in urban centres, raising the risk of electricity shortage, reduced air quality, heat-related illness and death. Climate change will surely have an impact on tourism, country's infrastructure, eco systems and public health.

Today the world does not measure development mainly by factors such as distribution of income, human freedom and rights, but they refer to a factor known as Sustainable Human Development Index (SHDI).

This Human Sustainable Development Index is an index for measuring the same things as the Human Development Index but also takes into account the one thing that the HDI fails to - the environment. Sri Lanka stands at the 97 position, according to the 2011 statistics.

The Government launched the 'Haritha Lanka' Program in order to promote earth friendly actions among citizens as well as the business community. Sri Lanka is also a party to the Kyoto Protocol since 2002 which is the legal mechanism under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. According to Kyoto Protocol the industrialised countries should reduce their combined Greenhouse gas emissions by at least 5 percent compared to the levels of 1990 with in 2008 - 2012. In Sri Lanka the Climate Change secretariat of the Ministry of Environment is the focal point for the Kyoto protocol.

If proper precautions are not taken and warming is left to continue it is believed that more than one million species worldwide could face the risk of extinction by 2050.