Published on 08-09-2008 in The Daily New Nation (Environment)
Mohammed Abdul Baten & Ronju Ahammad
Even though man is the best creation by the Almighty, yet humanity is solely responsible for recent crisis of climate change. Evidently, humanity is a major force in global change and shapes ecosystem dynamics from local environment to the biosphere as a whole. United Nations projections for the growth of the world population and consumption show humanity is going to use double the bio-productivity of the planet by 2050. Reaching this level of consumption may be impossible, however, as the natural capital being used to enable this overshoot may well be depleted before the mid century mark, many scientists warned. Now the question arises: are we friend or foe of environment?Apparently, environmental problems are associated with poverty. In this sense, no other option exists than to overuse resources. Worldwide changes of forests, farmlands, waterways, and air are being driven by the need to provide food, fibre, water and shelter to more than six billion people. In fact, it's simply a matter of survival. In many cases, however, resource degradation is simply the result of human kind's insatiable desire to produce and consume leading to wilful short- term greed and corruption with no heed for the future. But, most unfortunate thing is that the nature is giving negative feedbacks to human behaviour more abruptly and devastatingly than before; complementary situation is now turning to a rival state. No doubt, poorer part of the world is the most affected by nature's cruelty. Adverse impacts of climate change namely tropical storms, floods, and droughts are greater in developing countries and least developed countries. Between 1990 and 2002, 94% of all natural hazards related death occurred in the developing countries.The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) presents how human exploited nature unsustainably and made an asymmetrical relationship with nature. In fact, humans have already converted nearly a third of the total arable land area of the world, almost 3.8 million hectares, to agriculture and urban or built-up areas. Most of the remainder is too dry for agriculture or inaccessible. Between 1960 and 2000, the demand for ecosystem services (benefits provided by ecosystems) grew significantly as world population doubled to 6 billion and the global economy increased more than six fold. To meet this demand, food production increased by roughly 2.5 times, water use doubled, wood harvests for pulp and paper production tripled, installed hydropower capacity doubled, and timber production increased by more than half. Water scarcity and land degradation are already severe enough to reduce yields on about 16 percent of agricultural lands, especially cropland in Africa and Central America, and pasture in Africa. The average annual growth rate of cereal production in developing countries has dropped from 2.5 to 1 percent per year over the past 35 years. The use of two ecosystem services, capture fisheries and freshwater, is now well beyond levels that can be sustained even at current demands, much less future ones. At least one quarter of important commercial fish stocks are over harvested. From 5 percent to possibly 25 percent of global freshwater use exceeds long-term accessible supplies and is now met either through engineered water transfers or overdraft of groundwater suppliesIn the last few decades, approximately 20 percent of the world's reefs were lost; an additional 20 percent was degraded. In the Caribbean, 80 percent of coral has been lost in recent decades. Additionally, approximately a third of the world's mangrove areas were lost. The number of species on the planet is declining. Over the past few hundred years, humans have increased the species extinction rate by as much as 1000 times over background rates typical over the planet's history. Since 1750, the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide has increased by three times, primarily due to the combustion of fossil fuels and land use changes. Approximately 60 percent of that increase (60 parts per million) has taken place since 1960.As mentioned earlier, poorer countries are mostly affected by environmental variability. Bangladesh is one of the most vulnerable countries to several natural hazards; and hazards often become disasters because of geographical setting, poor planning, weak infrastructure, high population density, and technological insufficiency to early warning system. For instance, when Hurricane Andrew, a powerful category storm, struck in Florida in 1992, it caused devastation valued at 26.5 billion and 23 people lost their lives. An equivalent tropical cyclone SIDR that ravaged Bangladesh in 2007 resulted in over 4000 deaths, loss over 50000 cattle lives, displacement of millions of individuals from widespread tidal surge and damage of one third of the Largest Mangrove forest ( The Sundarbans) including its unique flora and fauna ( Data compiled from newspaper reports). What should we do standing in front of nature's rage with implications of climate change? What would be our future? Sustention or collapse of the current civilization? Though it is difficult to answer all these questions, yet it is obvious that all agree to the point, our present trends of resource use and view to the environment will result worse future. It is late but not too late to restore the relationship between human and nature. Efforts to stem current wrecked resource use system and avoid to ecosystem collapse must take into account the slow response times of human population and infrastructure. Innovative approaches to meet human needs should encourage not only at individual level but also at national to global level. Undoubtedly, to face the challenge of climate change, we should be the steward of nature and be rational of resource use. In this perspective, what would be the basis of Human- Nature relationship is best illustrated by The Surah 55, The Holy Quran, where the Almighty announces "Most Gracious is Allah, who reveals Himself in the Quran, in man's intelligence and in the nature around man. Balance and Justice, Goodness and Care, are the Laws of His worlds……."(Prepared by Mohammed Abdul Baten & Ronju Ahammad Stockholm Resilience Centre, University of Stockholm, Sweden)
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