Recent climatic vagaries should warn us that we need to be prepared for the worst. This month there were two earthquakes and other tremors. For the past few days the region has had unprecedented storms with fierce wind speeds that uproot houses and roofs and create devastation. Huge-sized hailstones have destroyed crops in many areas of the State. This will result in crop failure for farmers, particularly the potato crop. Climate Change is a real thing. We have felt it and seen it happen before our eyes. But whether we are prepared to adapt to, or to mitigate the impacts of Climate Change are questions that we need to put to ourselves and to the government which is vested with the mandate to act on this matter.
While farmers have changed their cropping patterns as an adaptation measure and while this is, to some an opportunity, not all are aware or ready to shift their cropping patterns and to replace some crops with others. It would require much ground work by the Forest and Environment Department and the Agriculture Department to take this learning to the ground. Much scientific literature is now available on Climate Change, adaptation and mitigation from around the globe. It is now time for agencies both government and non-government to take this learning to the people, especially to farmers. It is also high time to come up with sustainable constructions which go by the jargon of green buildings. We need to see more earthquake proof structures coming up instead of concrete monsters. These model buildings need to be in place for others to copy. Our love affair with concrete and high-rises could prove very costly in the long run and we could see loss of human lives not so much because of the earthquakes but because of people being buried under the debris.
