Climate change is the most hackneyed topic in today's modern world. From the mystic Sadhguru to the child activist Greta Thunberg, all environmental activists, and ecologists are exhorting the world to take the cue and pay heed. Nature has shown in umpteen ways that she is being abused and virulently damaged. Climate change is an umbrella term for a variety of environmental and ecological issues. Scarcity of water, global warming, exploitation, and depletion of nonrenewable natural resources, rampant air and water pollution, ever-increasing plastic dumb, lack of proper waste management, contamination of oceans, flora and fauna extinction, cyclones and typhoons, floods and droughts of hitherto unseen degree, and now repeated and virulent pandemic eruption hither thither. Though all these are equally scary and consequential changes in our environment, there is possibly no other change that can be most threatening to the very survival of mankind, and that is the ever-increasing global heat. According to some researches by 2070, a third of the total world's population could suffer due to extreme heat. This is to mean that about 3.5 million people could suffer from unbearable and blistering heat in 5 decades. A third of the world will experience an average temperature of 29 degrees Celsius. The optimum temperature for a human ecological niche is around 11-15 and 20-25 degrees Celsius. This has been the scenario for the past 6000 years. If necessary precautions are not taken, then greenhouse gas emissions will continue unabated and this will not bode well for global temperature. It is projected that by 2070, the area where the temperature will exceed 29 degrees Celsius will catapult from 0.8% to 19%. The affected areas seem to encompass South America, Africa, India, Australia, and parts of south-east Asia. In India alone, it is expected to affect more than a billion people, and in countries like Nigeria, Sudan, and Pakistan more than 100 million people will be under severe heat. In such a milieu, it will be increasingly difficult to handle and stop another pandemic if and when it erupts. Carbon emissions should be reduced significantly. Ozone layer depletion is another growing global issue. If reckless human activities continue unabated, then the entire world is inching its way to a global catastrophe. It is predicted that if we continue our path of injudicious and inconsiderate means, then the temperature will rise 4 degrees Celsius by the end of this century and each degree rise in temperature is a clarion call for remedial actions.
