Well, the topic of the century – Climate Change. Human race threatening climate change. There is a lot of talks on what the developed countries going to do when they meet in Copenhagen. Will they stand up to our expectations and vow to limit the CO2 level to 350 ppm? Surely, the change in climate has negative impacts on different aspects – lifestyle, vegetation, wildlife, and many more.
I am going to talk about the impacts on Nepal. Some of the effects are:
1) Change in flowering period – Rhododendron, national flower, normally blooms in mid-April but it is blooming around 15-25 days earlier.
2) Increase in flooding, landslides – This year also we had floods in the Western part damaging properties and displacing thousands of people. Many people lost their lives in flood and lanslides.
3) Increase in summer precipitation- The monsoon normally ends on Sept.23 but this year it extended till Oct. 10 and the volume of rain (mm/day) was greater than the previous years causing havoc in different parts of the Country.
4) Decrease in snow- The pride of Nepal-Himalayas- is losing their ornaments. The glaciers are retreating. We will not get to see the snow in mountains after around 70-80 years if present conditions prevail.
5) Effect in Tourism- Lot of tourists come Nepal just to be near the mountains and some of them scale them too. If there are not any snow, the number of tourists visiting Nepal will surely decline and also the bare mountains will be difficult to scale resulting in more casualties. Result, revenue will go down.
6) Decrease in drinking water- The water we get normally comes from the mountains. Global warming will cause the snow to melt faster, more faster each day, causing a short term increase in the water flow in the rivers. Then the amount will drastically decline when there will be no or very less snow left on the mountains causing water shortage, mostly in the KTM valley, which is facing water shortage now also.
7) Effect on biodiversity – As the temperature rises, the crop cultivated on a piece of land this year can not be cultivated in the same land after 3-5 years and should be done in higher/lower altitudes. Wildlife should also wander in search of new lands for grazing,drinking and other purposes.
8 ) Rise in mortalty rate- Climate change and rise in temperature will bring new disease unheard before. Many new environmental problems have arisen after the 80′s thus causing effect in the health of the people.
Well, there are many more effects and sure, these effects are going to scale upwards if we are not going to take action on these matters as soon as possible. They say, it’s better late than never.
At last, thanks goes to Blog Action Day for creating this initiative of bringing voices from the world together.
