Climate Crisis and the Need for Environmental Consciousness
In this insightful piece, sociologist Dr. Denim Deka examines the unfolding Climate Crisis in Northeast India. She explores how environmental degradation disproportionately impacts vulnerable communities, urging us to embrace deep environmental consciousness and localized climate justice before it is too late.
We are in the midst of a climate crisis. With threats overpowering all habitations across the world, humans and species are faced with existential risk. They are starting to lose its value. The intention with which 2015 Paris agreement commenced to clear path for humanity, is today at a crossroad. Its aim to avert turbulent outcomes of climate change is not materializing. In fact, the climate crisis transformed into an ongoing phenomenon resulting in adverse effects upon ecosystem health, human well-being, and material welfare.
With the recently held climate summit of COP30 Brazil, the world now knows that the fight for a breathable and livable planet is on. However, unaligned interests and lack of a proper roadmap has made climate denial evident. While we are trying our best to adapt to climate change as a functional requirement, it has not stopped manifesting in its progressive pattern. From extreme climate events like droughts, floods, wildfires, heatwaves to forced displacements, migration, agricultural collapse, and finally, mental pressures, there is a visible disruption in the natural balance. Here, I cite an example of climate change that would leave us to ponder what is really happening. Do you realize fog around your house and all around is minimizing? This is because of climate change. Today, the ecosystem has been parched, and the beauty of visibility through the invisibility of fog is dwindling.
But why are we not able to address the concerns? How do we challenge the certainties and extremes of this crisis? Should we blame human induced environmental changes with ourselves leading an active role? To what extent would Anthropocene continue overtaking the environment? Would we not have an environmental consciousness to embrace sustainability transformations? There are many questions that is seeking to emerge through the cracks and gaps of climate failures. It is poignant that climate change disorients and disproportionately affects people belonging to different strata in the social hierarchy. They are left with inadequate housing, floods, informal occupations and livelihood, food and water insecurity, and fueling environmental degradation. While the lower income and vulnerable groups contribute the least to climate change, yet they become the ones to be crushed most negatively. This adds to the idea of climate injustice where climate change does not resonate to the activities and practices of the vulnerable groups. On the other hand, they are confronted with the severity and frequency of climate disasters, providing them shock, and grasp for an escape. Hence, it is not easy to adapt to climate change with inequitable access to climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies. The glaring divide between the rich and the poor is to be explored, and solved.
We are losing sight of the big picture. Somewhere we still feel climate change to be a fiction than a disastrous reality. Due to the absence of an actionable reverence for the nature, what we see is alarming. Ice –sheets are beginning to melt. Snowing has turned to rains. Mountains are erupting with ice retreating. Abnormal tons of green-house gas get released on burning fossil fuels, and it is abundant in earth’s atmosphere. Storm surges in the coastal areas. Forests stripped naked of their green shield, and tribal communities losing its natural pharmacy. Crops damaged by unusual heatwaves in India, and farmers’ losing agricultural fields. In addition, let us talk about Northeast India, a region which has started to face the climate crisis. Extreme weather patterns have changed the frequency and magnitude of rainfall here. Floods and landslides continue to encircle the region like smoke. Our summers have prolonged and winters shrinking. In short, the fragile biodiversity hotspot of the Northeast has been shaken, disturbed, and darkened.
But the world today (through climate colonialism) is pressuring to adapt and change our practices in Global South, but isn’t it the Global North who emitted more green-house gases? We are made the scapegoat, and called to reduce our emission levels. This falls under a hypocritical environmental campaign where we have to be the obedient participants. The rules seem to be institutionalized. But what we require is a region-specific climate change mitigation target. The contradictions and complexities have to sieved for a coherence in solution.
Probably, our need to act towards the environment is never clear. We are mostly reclining on a slow progress. There is time to reduce emissions, and the time should start now, and through every minute. Participation in climate summits and conventions, and trying to scribble out solutions to climate chaos has become messy. There is never ending debates but no consensus on what we need to look around the planet. What slums of climate refugees experience, and what they sense is far behind the outlook of those who are at the helm of power. Feeling heat of the sultry summer, drenched in an inundated area, looking for food with an empty plate, endangered status of animals, and many more such accounts would seem superficial for political priorities and economic forces.
A climate action cannot be justified by discussions in a glorified setting. It is pertinent that local participation from private individuals and households are encouraged following a bottom-down approach too. We have to learn from traditional societies as well as indigenous communities and their pattern of surviving climate atrocities. The equity and inclusivity of local communities and different classes of people is to be mandated to identify problems and evoke responses and practices. Otherwise, a widespread action for climate change would remain unseen and ineffective. Most importantly, it is prerequisite to understand that climate change is no longer a phenomenon but is an invitation to look into our greed, and human behavior towards development. One difference made by each individual will go on to make a big difference. We cannot harbor an attitude to be distinct from nature because we are part of it. Jane Goodall said to act along the vector of compassion for other living beings.
What's Your Reaction?
