Nature Is Not Negotiable

Nature Is Not Negotiable

By Dr Arvind Kumar

The recently-concluded climate conference in Cancún did indeed make progress on a few important issues, but it basically ignored the two crucial questions: How much carbon will we cut, and how fast? The climate is a place where we have absolutely no choice but to steer by abstract ideals. The terms of the climate change conundrum aren’t set by contending ideologies. In the case of global warming, there are lines, hard and fast. There’s no shading between one element and the next, and the elements are, in that sense, abstract ideals. In January 2008, world’s best climatologists gave us concentrations above 350 parts per million (ppm) of carbon in the atmosphere as too much. We’re already past that; we’re at 390 ppm, which is why 2010 has been the warmest year on record, having witnessed the Arctic melting again in summer, Russia caught fire, and flash foods causing havoc in India, Pakistan and elsewhere.

Scientists tell us that if we let this planet warm much longer, we’ll lose forever the chance of getting back to 350. That means we’ll lose forever the basic architecture of our planet with its frozen poles. Already the ocean is turning steadily more acidic; the atmosphere is growing steadily wetter, which means desertifying evaporation in arid areas and downpour and deluge elsewhere. Defiance of nature for corporate prosperity at the expense of the poor will be a harikari. So let’s not negotiate Nature but help maintain its equilibrium.