Karmic Effect

Many people are now talking about climate change after Al Gore came out with his An Inconvenient Truth documentary. In graphic detail, Gore demonstrated how a 20-foot (6m) rise in the sea level would inundate much of Florida, Shanghai and Holland.

Some environmentalists claim that most of the scenarios in Gore’s documentary were exaggerated. They cite the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s recent report, which noted an average of 38.5cm sea level rise.

These environmentalists say that the exaggerated scenarios in Gore’s documentary may yet win him an Academy Award. But they say the scenarios have no basis in science. Still, they admitted that sea level rise and global warming are things we should all be concerned about.

Exaggerated or not, rising sea levels, global warming and climate change are as real as the unusual super typhoons the Philippines has experienced in recent years and the unusual floods that submerged New Orleans and recently Jakarta and other parts of Indonesia. Canada and other countries in the Arctic region are now experiencing shorter winters while other parts of the world are reeling from heat waves.

Our planet is getting warmer, say scientists, because of a hole in the ozone layer. There’s a hole there because of too much gas emissions from fossil fuels. The Kyoto Protocol on climate change is supposed to help address this, but the world’s biggest oil consumer and polluter that is the US, refused to sign it. And those who signed it have difficulty reducing their fossil fuel consumption.

Through its space program, the US may yet find another planet where it can evacuate its people. In anticipation of sea levels rising in the future, Japan is now building underwater cities.

In a world ruled by the strong and the mighty in terms of technological and economic capacity, the less fortunate and poor countries may yet perish during the next Great Deluge.

But even if they can land on the moon or can send a rover on Mars, the Americans may not be able to escape from the worst consequence of global warming. Neither can Japan even with its underwater cities. We are still on the same troubled titanic spaceship called planet Earth.

Scientists now acknowledged that the destruction of the ozone and its consequence such as global warming and rising sea levels are not natural phenomena but man-made. Such acknowledgment is an admission of guilt. This is good because we cannot correct a wrong unless we recognize and admit it.

We have abused the only planet we have got through our abusive and consumerist lifestyles and our greed. Now we are reaping the karmic effect of our collective sin.