IPCC issued a ‘code red’ alert

Human-induced climate change is ravaging our planet and every country, including Bangladesh, is struggling to deal with its impacts

As the world battles record-shattering heat waves, calamitous droughts, deadly floods and landscape-altering wildfires, a roughly 4,000-page report released on August 9, 2021 by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) spells out, in unequivocal terms, how anthropogenic climate change is ravaging our planet. Prepared by IPCC’s Working Group I and described by its authors as a “code red for humanity,” the report warns that global temperatures will likely to rise by 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2040 if warming continues at the current rate. This is the threshold value agreed upon in 2015 at the 21st Conference of Parties (COP21) in Paris.

Key takeaways from the IPCC report

> Climate change is a reality and it is going to get worse

> Humans are responsible for the “widespread, rapid and intensifying” effects of climate change, and some of them are irreversible

> Extreme weather is on the rise and will keep getting worse

> Oceans have warmed, their acidification has increased, and there has been a drop in Arctic sea ice

> Glaciers are melting at an accelerated pace

> Sea-level rise will be worse than once thought

> We must cut greenhouse gas emissions now, before brutal weather becomes more prevalent and more destructive

> Tipping points, or cut-offs—which, when exceeded, will set off self-perpetuating irreversible loops in the natural world—have a “low likelihood,” but they cannot be completely ruled out

After the report was made public, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said, “The alarm bells are deafening, and the evidence is irrefutable: greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel burning and deforestation are choking our planet and putting billions of people at immediate risk.” Many media outlets did not mince words to describe the nightmarish scenario painted in the report about the future of our planet. The frontpage headline in The New York Times read, “A Hotter Future Is Certain, Climate Panel Warns. But How Hot Is Up to Us.” The Atlantic described the crisis with two words: “It’s Grim.” One of the authors of IPCC’s 2001 report told CNN, “Bottom line is that we have zero years left to avoid dangerous climate change, because it’s here.” On the other hand, in an opinion piece in the conservative The Wall Street Journal, a physicist expressed scepticism about coverage by the media. He wrote, “Despite constant warnings of catastrophe, things aren’t anywhere near as dire as the media say.”

Eight years in the making, the report essentially validates the seemingly bleak future that many of us foresaw with trepidation. It also confirms what scientists had predicted even before coal-fired power plants were built. In 1856, American scientist Eunice Foote was the first to describe the extraordinary power of carbon dioxide—the driving force of global warming—to absorb heat. The first quantitative estimate of climate change influenced by carbon dioxide was made in 1895 by Svante Arrhenius, a Swedish scientist and Nobel laureate.

For the general public, physicist James Hansen of NASA sounded the alarm about climate change after his testimony to the US Congress in June 1988 on the detrimental effects of human-induced greenhouse gas emissions. Yet in 1995, the IPCC is on record stating that the ability to connect climate change to human activities is “currently limited.” This time around, the IPCC admits that they can now link recent natural disasters with climate change in a way that they have not been able to before. What an about-turn!

The latest IPCC report is a stark reminder of what we are experiencing today—scorching summers roasting millions of people worldwide, out-of-control wildfires, protracted droughts, widespread famine, killer storms, torrential rainfall followed by cataclysmic floods, and more. These are among the most visible and damaging signs that the Earth’s climate is changing for the worse as a result of burning fossil fuels. And all these weather-related events are happening because the world warmed by a “mere” 1.1 degrees Celsius since the Industrial Revolution. Clearly, with each passing day, these events will become more intense, turbocharged, amplified, and worse.

Thanks to the report, many Republicans in the US Congress, who for decades disputed the existence of climate change, no longer deny that the Earth is heating up because of greenhouse gas emissions. Or perhaps the statement from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration—that July was the world’s hottest month ever recorded—forced them to acknowledge climate change. However, they are still unwilling to abandon fossil fuels.

Since the 1980s, emissions, particularly of carbon dioxide, have ballooned to unprecedented levels despite repeated, and at times frantic, warnings from scientists about “civilisation-shaking” catastrophes. Scientists at the International Energy Agency say that emissions of carbon dioxide “are on course to surge by 1.5 billion tonnes in 2021, the second-largest increase in history, reversing most of last year’s decline caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.”

Climate is controlled by how much of the Sun’s heat arrives at and remains trapped near the Earth’s surface. Because the Sun is expected to shine at the minimum for another five billion years, we can envisage no major changes in the incoming heat for many thousands of years to come. Thus, the changes we will see in climate from now until 2050, a cut-off year determined at COP21 to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to zero, will mostly depend on how much of the arriving heat is retained by the Earth’s surface.

Having said that, even if the goals of COP21 are met, the Earth will still be warmer in the future than it is today and the warming trend will continue because it takes a long time for the Earth’s climate to adjust to the changes in its energy budget, resulting from increased greenhouse gas concentrations. Besides, if emissions of carbon dioxide dropped to zero tomorrow, climate change will continue to play out for centuries because the greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere have lifetimes of hundreds and thousands of years. Given this circumstance, we can still keep warming below catastrophic levels by going carbon negative together with zero emission. Carbon negative means removing more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than adding to it.

Climate change and Bangladesh

As for Bangladesh, it is among the countries most vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Although the global share of carbon dioxide emissions by Bangladesh is a meagre 0.21 percent, climate change has already been inflicting untold miseries on its people. The government has identified floods, cyclones, droughts, tidal surges, tornadoes, river erosion, water logging, rising sea level and soil salinity as major hazards that are behind a shift in migration and increasing poverty.

Bangladesh has a hot climate, with summer temperatures that can hit 45 degrees Celsius. In a world that is hotter by 1.5 to two degrees Celsius, heat waves will break new records, with more than half of summers being abnormally hot. Northern Bangladesh will enter a new climatic regime, with temperatures above levels not seen in the past 100 years. In light of this fact, the government is rightfully demanding that industrialised nations, who are also the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases, reduce their planet-warming pollution without further delay, compensate poor countries for the damages caused, and fund them so that they can be better prepared for a perilous future.

In the past few years, the Bangladesh government made significant advances in disaster risk reduction. It has constructed a series of multi-purpose buildings that are used as storm shelters during cyclones, significantly reducing mortality. Notwithstanding, the damage and loss of income due to climate change is on the rise. Nevertheless, if Bangladesh wants to become a middle-income country, the government should focus on mitigation along with adaptation, and move away from coal-fired power plants.

On a different note, the amount of methane emitted by Bangladesh is so high that the country is now becoming a significant contributor to environmental degradation. Methane is a greenhouse gas that can cause 28 times as much warming as an equivalent amount of carbon dioxide over a period of 100 years. According to IPCC, the concentration of methane in the atmosphere is higher now than at any time in the last 800,000 years.

Melting of glaciers and ice sheets

A few words about the effects of global warming on one of the primary sources of fresh water are in order here. Out of the 71 percent of water that make up the Earth’s surface, the vast majority, over 96 percent, is non-drinkable saline water in seas and oceans. Just 3.5 percent is fresh water, but a minuscule amount—approximately one percent—are in freshwater lakes, streams and in the atmosphere. The bulk of the fresh water, almost 70 percent, is trapped in ice and glaciers. While most of the ice is in the Arctic, Antarctic and Greenland, some are scattered as glaciers in the mountains around the world.

The glaciers we see today are remnants of the past Ice Age, an alternating period of melting and freezing that lasted about a million years. Yielding only to the warmth of the Sun’s rays, these giant rivers of ice grind their way to the sea, crushing everything in their path, scouring the landscape, shaping mountain peaks and carving broad valleys.

Considered to be the “gold standard for measuring climate change,” glaciers are a natural data bank. In between their thick layers of compacted snow, glaciers hold records of volcanic eruptions, chemicals in the air and changes in the atmosphere. They reflect variations in the pattern of weather and climate over long periods of time.

Glaciers feed many of the world’s important river systems, including the Brahmaputra, Ganges and Indus, and directly or indirectly supply millions of people with food, energy, clean air and incomes. Communities living at the foothills of large mountains use glaciers as a source of water.

Across the high mountain region from the Hindu Kush to the Himalayas, which stretches from Afghanistan in the west to Myanmar in the east, air temperatures have risen by nearly two degrees since the start of the 20th century. In response, glaciers are melting and retreating, permafrost is thawing and weather patterns are becoming more erratic, disrupting previously reliable water sources for millions and triggering more natural disasters. Scientists are worried that the impacts will hit not just those living in the mountains, but also millions of people in Bangladesh, India and Pakistan living in the river valleys below.

Melting of glaciers has another effect. More melting means more water pools in lakes on top of the glaciers or at their lower snouts. Since the late 1970s, the number of glacial lakes across the Himalayas in Nepal has more than doubled. These lakes are often growing so fast and hold so much water that they have gushed through the rock piles holding them back, resulting in devastating floods. Additionally, steep slopes that were locked in place by frozen soil have thawed, causing rockfalls, collapsing terrains, avalanches and mud slides.

Because of global warming, ice sheets are melting at breakneck speed and will continue to melt. Indeed, a historic heat wave in July melted ice in Greenland large enough to flood the entire state of Florida with well-nigh two inches of water. At the same time, extreme flooding from higher sea level will continue to get more frequent, and the sea level itself will continue to rise well into the next century, mainly because of thermal expansion due to the amount of heat the oceans have absorbed so far.

Widespread loss of ice sheets will likely alter climate in other complex ways. For example, their white surfaces help to keep our climate relatively mild by reflecting the Sun’s rays. When they melt, darker exposed surfaces will absorb and retain more heat, thereby raising global temperatures.

It is now a truism that global warming begets more warming. Therefore, the effects of climate change will worsen with every fraction of a degree of warming. Even if we limit warming to 1.5 degrees, the kinds of extreme weather events we are experiencing this year, in winter and summer alike, will become more severe and more recurrent. Beyond 1.5 degrees, scientists say the climate system will be unrecognisable. In all likelihood, it will lead to the disappearance of small island nations and low-lying coastal countries, as well as unleash tens of millions of climate refugees upon an unprepared world.

What will be the response of our leaders and policymakers after they read the IPCC report? It will not be an exaggeration to say that world leaders, who are under tremendous pressure to deliver on promises made at COP21, cannot distinguish the divide between rhetoric and reality. Hence, at COP26, to be held in Glasgow, Scotland later this year, we should not expect any firm commitment from them to save the world. Instead, their speeches will be like the ones given at past climate-related summits—”full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

Finally, the well-researched and well-intentioned report on climate change and recommendations for mitigation and adaptation contained therein can, metaphorically speaking, be characterised as a “recovery mission” rather than a “rescue mission.”

Quamrul Haider is a Professor of Physics at Fordham University, New York.

Five years since Paris Accord: Are we any better?

Global warming and rise in sea level

Today marks the fifth anniversary of the Paris Accord hammered out by more than 190 countries at the 21st Conference of Parties (COP21). The core objective of the accord is to save humanity from the existential threat posed by climate change. To that end, the participating nations agreed to keep the increase in the average global temperature to within 2 degrees Celsius while endeavouring to limit it to 1.5 degrees by the year 2100. Besides pledging to temper the rise in temperature, they agreed to restructure the global economy, phase out fossil fuels over the coming decades, switch to renewable sources of energy, embrace clean technology, and most importantly, reduce greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2050.

The Accord gives every country the ability to set its own goals to confront the climate crisis, in line with their specific situation. Moreover, instead of demanding expeditious and deep cuts in fossil fuel usage, it allows parties to peak greenhouse gas emissions “as soon as possible” followed by a gradual decrease in order to reach the zero emissions goal. It is patently evident that such a vague timetable fits the interests of the major polluters, including the United States, China and India. Nevertheless, beginning this year, each nation is required to reassess its own reduction plans once every five years. However, there is no consequence or penalty if a country fails to reassess or falls short of the pledged reductions.

The Accord also requires nations to address “loss and damage” caused by climate impacts. Since the wealthy, industrialised nations are largely responsible for the backlog of climate changing emissions lingering in the atmosphere, they should compensate poorer nations for unavoidable loss and damage. But even after COP25 held in Madrid last year (2019), wealthy nations are playing Jekyll and Hyde roles—promising to cover losses while dragging their feet on providing new finance.

We are now a full five years into the Paris Accord which, according to the former US President Barack Obama, is supposed to make the “world safer and more secure, more prosperous and more free.” Are we really on course to transform our planet into one as envisioned by Obama? Are we winning the race against climate change? Did we succeed in slowing down the damage resulting from climate change? By all accounts, the Accord did not make an iota of difference in decelerating the progression of our planet, and subsequently our civilisation, toward climatic meltdown. On the contrary, climate change and its deleterious effects are accelerating, with climate-related catastrophes piling up, year after year.

Our planet is now almost at the breaking point. The environmental changes sweeping across the world are occurring at a much quicker pace than five years ago. As the Earth warms, we are witnessing more cataclysmic wildfires turning forests into carbon dioxide emitters, not to mention calamitous floods inundating nearly half of landmasses in countries like Bangladesh, Maldives, Thailand and so forth. Persistent droughts, fierce storms and an increase in extreme weather phenomena—derecho, microburst, bombogenesis, Frankenstorm and many more—are on the rise. The fingerprints of climate change since 2015 can also be seen in the exacerbation of internal and international migration patterns of climate refugees.

Scorching heat waves, of all places, in the Arctic region, are now more frequent and long-lasting. It is quite likely that 2020 will be among the hottest years ever, even with the cooling effect of this year’s La Niña. Seas are warming and rising faster, putting more coastal cities at risk of going under acidic water. Warmer waters are wreaking havoc on marine organisms forcing them to migrate away from their familiar habitats. Glaciers are melting at an alarming rate, thus disrupting availability of freshwater.

Climate-induced mayhem is taking a heavy toll on the Arctic region. The amount of Arctic sea ice whose whiteness normally acts as a natural reflector of heat back out of the atmosphere is dwindling so rapidly that the region may soon become ice-free. Loss of ice is also changing the Arctic terrain—making it greener and prettier, but at the expense of releasing copious amounts of carbon dioxide and methane trapped in the frozen soil, which in turn is making global warming even worse. Additionally, scientists have found evidence that frozen methane deposits in the Arctic Ocean, worrisomely called the “sleeping giant of the carbon cycle,” are escaping into the atmosphere. In fact, northern landscapes are undergoing massive change, with potential ramifications not just for the Arctic itself, but the world as a whole.

Permafrost in cold climate countries is thawing at breakneck speed, releasing, just like Arctic ice, large amounts of long-stored carbon dioxide and methane. In addition, viruses and bacteria that had been buried under the permafrost for thousands of years are being released into the environment, posing health risks to humans and other forms of life. Also, deforestation of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil, a vital carbon sink that retards the momentum of global warming, has surged to its highest level since 2008.

As for peaking of emissions, there is a cavernous gap between the sharp cuts in emissions required to meet the goals of the Paris Accord and current projections. In a recent report, World Meteorological Organization (WMO), a specialised agency of the United Nations, states, “There is no sign of slowdown, let alone a decline, in greenhouse gases concentration in the atmosphere despite all the commitments under the Paris agreement.” Rather, emissions from just about every country are still on the rise, thereby making it difficult to close the gap so as to achieve zero emissions by 2050.

The report further notes that even the coronavirus-related drop in emissions failed to make much of a dent in the amount of heat-trapping greenhouse gases accumulating in the atmosphere. Consequently, WMO warns that the world risks becoming an “uninhabitable hell” for millions unless we drastically cut emissions—by at least 7.2 percent every 10 years if we want to keep the rise in temperature to 1.5 degree Celsius. Otherwise, we will soon be north of 3 degrees Celsius.

The warning from WMO is corroborated by a study published last month in the British journal Scientific Reports, in which the authors assert that we have already passed the “point of no return for global warming.” The only way we can stop the warming, the authors say, is by extracting “enormous amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.”

The Earth’s average temperature has already risen by roughly one degree since the advent of modern record keeping in 1880. The devastation caused by one degree rise clearly indicates that an additional 1.5 – 2 degrees Celsius rise before the end of this century will lock in the changes to the Earth’s climate system that will be beyond our adaptive capacity.

Five years ago, the then UN chief lauded the Paris Accord as a landmark agreement, a potent message from world leaders who had finally decided to take on climate change in earnest. Five years later, in a complete volte-face, the present UN chief, in a speech at Columbia University in New York, issued a searing indictment of our utter disregard for the pledges made in Paris. He said, “The state of the planet is broken. Humanity is waging a suicidal war on nature, facing new heights of global heating, new lows of ecological degradation….”

So much for the Paris Accord! No wonder environmentalists believe that the Accord is meaningless, and with good reason. Indeed, the toothless, nonbinding, non-enforceable accord is an oversold empty promise—a gentleman’s handshake applauding the imposition of a global climate regime on humankind that is harming the planet in the name of saving it.

Finally, world leaders should realise that fixing the climate is not about making pretty promises at grandiose conferences held in glamorous cities. And if we rely on grandstanding and farcical Accords that give us false hopes, we will lose the race to keep our planet cool and habitable.

Quamrul Haider is a Professor of Physics at Fordham University, New York.

Building a sustainable society in the age of climate change

In an article published in this website May 15, 2020, I discussed the future of our planet within the context of frontier ethics. The main conclusion was that frontier ethics, which affects our attitudes about the seriousness of environmental problems, will eventually lead to massive resource depletion and ecological disasters, and accelerate the pernicious effects of climate change.

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  Wind is blowing pollution from a coal burning power plant.

Those who believe in frontier ethics are least concerned about the declining fossil fuel reserves because they are convinced that reserves will never become dry. Their mantra—”Why be efficient if resources are unlimited”—prevents them from using available resources more efficiently. Instead, they maintain that we should increase the search for new reserves, even if it takes us into one of the few remaining pristine wilderness on our planet.

A classic example of someone who preaches and practices frontier ethics is Donald Trump. After becoming president of the United States of America, he signed an executive order opening up the entire coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to oil and gas exploration. Until then, it was an environmentally sensitive area long closed to drilling. Furthermore, he gave the coal industry in America a carté blanche to dig wherever there may be signs of coal. He also repealed former president Obama’s Clean Power Plan, giving states more flexibility to keep coal-fired power plants open.

Arguably, societies that believe in frontier ethics are low-synergy societies treading on a path of unsustainability. In contrast, high-synergy societies live in harmony with nature and they seek ways to enhance natural systems. Creating a high-synergy society that lives within the Earth’s means is possible if we adopt a set of sustainable ethics that ensures future generations and other species the resources they need to survive.

The tenets of sustainable ethics are: The Earth has a limited supply of resources, and they are not all for us; humans are a part of nature, subject to its laws; and success stems from efforts to cooperate with the forces of nature. Clearly, sustainable ethics recognises our place in the natural order as one of many millions of species and they favour cooperation over domination. Also, they are diametrically opposed to the tenets of frontier ethics. While frontier ethics leads to exploitive behaviour, sustainable ethics will lead to a less exploitive human presence that can endure for thousands of years.

In addition to the three tenets, there are at least six principles that lie at the core of sustainability. They are conservation, recycling, using renewable resources, restoration, population control and adaptability. Among other measures discussed below, if we follow these principles, we can create and maintain a well-functioning global ecosystem.

In order to build a sustainable society in which future generations and other species can survive and live well, we have to change our thinking process too—from linear to system thinking. Linear thinking sees events in a straight-line sequence, ignoring a complex web of interactions, while system thinking recognises how entire systems function. In the environmental arena, system thinking helps us to see how individual parts work together and how interdependent all life forms are. By becoming better system thinkers, we can learn to avoid impacts that threaten the health and wellbeing of the planet and its organisms.

Because system thinking encourages us to look at the whole, it will naturally force us to look at the root cause of problems, especially environmental ones. Additionally, it can help society to identify key leverage points as to where changes can be made. Moreover, system thinking will enhance our ability to see the big picture as well as connections between various parts that are essential to solving the many environmental problems, particularly those caused by climate change, and putting us on a sustainable path. Unfortunately, most of the world leaders are not system thinkers and therefore cannot guide us toward a sustainable society.

Building a sustainable society requires widespread participation with input from the rich and poor, conservative and liberal, young and old. In fact, sustainable solutions call for action from large and small businesses, individuals and governments. Individuals are important because each one of us is part of the problem. In other words, seemingly insignificant actions by us, albeit small, are responsible for many environmental problems we are facing today.

Achieving a sustainable world also requires massive cooperation between citizens and governments. Cooperation must occur on a much grander scale, with countries working together for the common good of their citizens and the planet. At the same time, we have to develop a unified strategy to fight the unique challenges posed by climate change.

But how do we achieve this cooperation and develop a unified strategy in an era when climate change is an impediment towards sustainable development? Since 1995, world governments have met every year at the so-called Conference of Parties to forge a global response to the climate change emergency. However, besides stating lofty goals, these dysfunctional conferences were either fractious or soporific. Interspersed with moments of rare triumph though, such as the Paris agreement in 2015, they mostly failed to deliver strong commitments to tackle the terror unleashed by climate change.

In the meantime, the impact of climate change on humans, animals and the environment are becoming increasingly unbearable. It is dragging millions of people into grinding poverty. That being the case, virtually no one any longer believes that these conferences will ever be able to tackle climate change, thereby allowing us to lead a sustainable life. If it sounds downbeat, that is because it is.

So how do we create a sustainable future? As noted by Einstein, “In the midst of every crisis, lies great opportunity.” Indeed, from the current crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic, we can observe some encouraging trends in our behaviour and lifestyle that have profound implications in the fight against climate change. If we can hold on to these trends in the post-pandemic world, we will be able to face the ongoing existential threat of climate change effectively and thus create a sustainable society.

Quamrul Haider is a Professor of Physics at Fordham University, New York.

Coronavirus pandemic – opening the eyes

Human beings had been fighting against the nature, against other animals and even against other human beings for centuries; in fact, ever since human consciousness arose. In doing so, the prevailing science and technology and natural defence were the main armoury of human beings. But now this little virus called Covid-19, so little that it is invisible even to the microscopes, has brought home to human beings in no uncertain terms that human existence is at the mercy of this virus or any similar strain of virus or mutated viruses.

What is this insidious virus that has brought virtually the whole world to a standstill, that is banging the heads of ardent capitalists, committed communists, socialists, devoted Muslims, Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, mullahs, ayatollahs, rabbis, priests, atheists, agnostics and all other strands of human dogmas come together to fight against it? Political, social, economic, religious divisions are now totally irrelevant against this virus. This virus does not distinguish or differentiate between the prime ministers, presidents, princes, ministers, millionaires, billionaires and destitute, paupers, street beggars etc. This virus can strike anybody at any time and that’s why it is a pandemic now.

This coronavirus is a virus – a miniscule biological entity, a microscopic parasite – that can infect living organisms. The coronavirus is a collective name for a group of viruses that covers everything from common cold to Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS). The covid-19 is a particular strain of coronavirus which had popped out, or one can say evolved, only a few months ago (in late 2019) in the wholesale fish market in the city of Wuhan, China. However, Covid-19 strain is somewhat different, more aggressive and contagious than SARS or MERS. Even Covid-19 has a number of strands

This Covid-19 is a variant of SARS that can go from human to human in aerosol form and through body contacts. Although some virologists speculate that it may have jumped from animals or reptiles to humans through food chain, there is no definitive evidence to support this hypothesis. Few days ago, there had been a report that some animals in the zoo in Bronx, New York had developed coronavirus symptoms, probably due to infection from zoo-keepers. This means that this virus or some variation of this virus has the ability to jump back and forth between men and animals.

The virus consists of a nucleic acid molecule (typically RNA or even DNA) with a protein coating to protect itself and distinctive spikes at the outer surface to anchor into a particular type of human cells. As it is a virus, it hasn’t got the ability to replicate itself and multiply. Nevertheless, it does want to survive, as all genes do, by multiplying and moving from body to body to improve its chances to live. To survive and replicate, it needs to find a host cell where it can make use of host cell’s genetic material and protective coating and then it strangulates the host cell so that the host cell cannot hit back and the host cell gradually withers away and dies. This virus when multiplied many times within the safety of a host cell bursts open and spreads out and each one of them then attacks surrounding cells and the process proliferates.

The victory by the virus following the first attack is by no means a smooth affair; it’s a bloody war. When the parasitic virus attacks the body, the immune system of the body (which is a system of proteins and cells that are distributed throughout the body) responds to the invasion. These proteins include antibodies, which lock on to the bits of the virus such as the spike ‘S’ protein. It was this spike ‘S’ protein that was used by the virus in the first place to home in to the body cell and go through the cell membrane. Now this very spike is used by the defence mechanism of the body to identify and target the virus.

Thus, the immune system tries very hard to exterminate the invading virus. A life and death struggle ensue; the virus (Covid-19) knows that unless it can colonise the host cell, it will die and the host cell also knows that if the invading virus wins, it will suck life out of it and the cell will die.

Thus, the immune system tries very hard to exterminate the invading virus. A life and death struggle ensue; the virus (Covid-19) knows that unless it can colonise the host cell, it will die and the host cell also knows that if the invading virus wins, it will suck life out of it and the cell will die.

As this struggle continues, the host body – the survival machine – is blissfully unaware of what is going at the cellular level. There is no outward symptom, no discernible ill effects. It is called the asymptomatic condition meaning no symptoms. After a few days, if the body immune system wins, the invading viruses are crushed and disposed of. On the other hand, if the invading viruses start winning and keep attacking cells after cells, alarm bell starts ringing and messages go out throughout the body that it is under attack. The organs which are lost or partially lost start showing up symptoms. These are sore throat, headaches, persistent coughing as respiratory tract cells gradually become dysfunctional and high body temperature. There may be reduced functionality of other body organs. For example, there may be loss of appetite, aches and pains, dizziness etc.

The body nonetheless keeps fighting. If the invading army of viruses attack and destroy lung cells, which in turn affect alveoli sacs, breathing becomes difficult and artificial breathing using oxygen masks and, in extreme cases, ventilation units may be required to supply oxygen to the body. All is not lost even at this stage and the body can recover. It is anticipated that at least another week or so would be required to recover. However, if there are pre-existing health conditions wherein the immune system was weakened already, such as pre-existing diabetes, heart conditions, kidney problems etc., then the chances of recovery become that much difficult.

Once the viral attack has been successfully overcome, the cells of the immune system would ‘remember’ the virus and its characteristic make-up and any future attack by this virus would be immediately repelled. However, this immune system memory would not last for very long period. Normally two to three years is the maximum for this memory.

To counter this virus, a vaccine is needed to be developed. The vaccine is likely to be a harmless subcomponent of the virus, and the idea is that the vaccine would stimulate the immune system, to develop antibody by lymphocytes and get the body well prepared in anticipation of viral attack.

The presumption among the political and economic leaders of the world is that once the immediate Covid-19 pandemic is overcome and the fatality figure is brought down to nil, everything can be scaled down and life will turn normal again. The reality is likely to be far from this situation. When fatality is brought down to zero in an area or in a country, it does not mean the virus is finished; it is just contained away from human beings. It can come back at any time, despite some precautionary measures.

The graph above shows that a physical system – an earthquake, a disease, a pandemic and so on – may appear multiple times, albeit in damped condition, after the first incidence. The first peak may be much bigger than the second peak, but the second and subsequent peaks cannot be ruled out. Moreover, the time gap between the peaks would depend on the measures taken to terminate such occurrences. The Spanish Flu of 1918 is a case for pandemic example; it came back and ravaged the world number of times over a number of years. So, every precaution must be taken to counter such recurrence.

Admittedly this pandemic is causing untold misery and pain to millions or billions of people round the world. The economy of each and every country is suffering and will bear unimaginable strain due to this pandemic. The social structure is irrevocably strained: social gatherings, public performances, national and international sports and games would be severely curtailed, if not completely abandoned. The education system is at doldrum. In fact, everything that the present civilisation pursues has to be reconsidered.

But much of it, if not all of it, is due to our unbridled activities, as if there is no tomorrow. The Earth had been poisoned endlessly with greenhouse gases (CO₂, NO_x, CFC etc) leading to unprecedented global warming – the devastating impacts of global warming are yet to come, the Earth and the seas are endlessly exploited, the population is going up and up and within 20 to 30 years it is likely to be over 12 billion. The worst thing is that there is no recognition that we are destroying this planet.

Take, for example, the actions of Donald Trump, the president of the most powerful and flamboyant nation on Earth. He has withdrawn America from the Paris Agreement of 2016 (UN Framework Convention on Climate Change) meaning that he can pursue whatever he wants to do regardless of what happens to Earth’s climate. Only about a month ago, he was dismissive of coronavirus as a common flu and asked people to have common flu precaution. Now, when thousands of Americans are dying in all major cities every day in America, he is blaming the States for not taking measures in time!

Political leaders must understand that short term measures to boost their public rating are causing long term damage to the Earth and the livelihood of common people who live on it. The leaders must be made to bear the consequences of their actions.  World order needs to be rearranged and made favourable to the Earth. Otherwise, the existence of humanity will be at stake.

Dr A Rahman is an author and a columnist    

Abnormal of the past becomes normal of the future in climate change age

Sandbag embankment in Khulna, Bangladesh after the cyclone, Fani in 2019

For millions of years, we were in equilibrium with our environment. Over the past 11,500 years, a period in Earth’s history called the Holocene Epoch, there had been a global climatic stability with the average surface temperature fluctuating around one degree Celsius up or down. Our civilisation emerged and progressed against this backdrop of a relatively stable climate.

Melting glaciers

But then something happened that led to the change of whole edifice for worse. The Industrial Revolution that began around 1760 had drastically changed, indeed corrupted, our environment. Today, we live on a planet whose air is polluted, whose water is contaminated and whose soil is chemically altered. Indeed, human influence is so substantial that Earth is no longer in the Holocene Epoch, but rather in a new geologic epoch, the Anthropocene. For comparison, the epoch before Holocene, the Pleistocene Epoch, lasted nearly 2.5 million years.

Our insatiable appetite for energy using fossil fuel to have higher and higher living standards is placing unbearable burden on the planet. Until 1970s there had been little or no concern about the detrimental effects of extraction and use of fossil fuels on an industrial scale, particularly the amount of greenhouse gases that are released into the atmosphere.  The current concentration of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, is about 415 parts per million. It is the highest concentration since the Pliocene Epoch, which extended from about 5.3 million to 2.5 million years ago.

We now live in a world where “abnormal” of yester-years have become “normal” of present day. Examples of present day normal that were abnormal some 50 years ago are Bombogenesis, Arctic Amplification, Hell Fire, Pyro-cumulonimbus Storms aka Fire Tornadoes, Heat Waves and Climate Refugees, Derecho, Sneaker Wave, Squall Line, Microburst, Frankenstorm, and so forth.

Under normal conditions, cold air mass sits above the poles in an area called the polar vortex. It is a large, low-pressure zone that exists at two levels of the atmosphere, one in the troposphere, where most of the weather-related phenomena occur, and the other a bit higher up, in the stratosphere, home of the ozone layer that protects us from the harmful effects of ultraviolet radiation. The vortices are seasonal atmospheric phenomena.

However, scientists believe that the phenomenon of Arctic Amplification, which is the self-reinforcing process that warms the Arctic and subarctic regions much faster than rest of the world, distorts the vortex in the North Pole, thereby resulting in a sudden plunge in temperature south of the Arctic Circle. This anomaly, a consequence of global warming, was abnormal before the 1970s, but quite normal today.

It is no longer implausible to have record snowfall and record high temperature on the same day. On November 16 of last year, Anchorage in Alaska saw its high temperature top out at plus seven degrees at 2:30 a.m. (Average November temperature in Anchorage is negative five degrees.) Before midnight that day, 21 centimetres of snow fell on the ground. This oddity, as well as 20-25 degrees swing in daytime temperature within 24 hours in the winter months—abnormal few decades ago—are normal now.

Located a few feet below the soil surface in extremely cold regions, permafrost is one of the most unique kinds of soil containing more carbon and methane than any other soil on Earth and twice as much carbon as is available in the atmosphere. But as global temperatures rise, Arctic permafrost thaws and greenhouse gases trapped in ice are released. Clearly, permafrost thawing is opening up additional pathways for greenhouse gases, constituting a newly identified, powerful feedback to global warming. Besides, ancient carcasses are emerging from the melting permafrost, and with them germs from illness long thought eradicated.

Nowadays, Australia and California are ground zero for out-of-control wildfires. As cataclysmic wildfires continue to rage across Australia, the loss of life—humans and animals—has reached staggering numbers. An estimated one billion animals have been killed so far and approximately 107,000 square kilometres—roughly 70 percent the size of Bangladesh—burned on the east coast.

Climate change is making heat waves longer and more frequent. Temperatures soaring over 50 degrees in many parts of the world are becoming the norm, while nice and comfortable weather has become the exception.

Some other wild weather phenomena due to climate change that were rare or considered abnormal in the past but not anymore are Derecho—a straight-line wind storm with hurricane-force winds; Sneaker Wave—a disproportionately large wave that suddenly appears during a wave sequence; Squall Line—a line of thunderstorms preceding a cold front; Microburst—severe downdraft caused by a thunderstorm; Frankenstorm—remnants of a super storm reinvigorated by an early winter storm and a blast of Arctic air.

Rising temperatures due to climate change is driving out oxygen from our oceans, threatening many species of aquatic life. According to the International Union of Conservation of Nature, around 700 ocean sites are now suffering from low oxygen, compared with 45 in the 1960s. Lest we forget, oceans are the source of most of the oxygen we breathe.

If the seas ever do rise by even a meter, our children and grandchildren may find themselves living cramped lives with other climate refugees on shrinking continents. “Humorously speaking,” they may even try to adopt the underwater lifestyle of the cartoon character SpongeBob SquarePants, provided ocean acidification caused by absorption of carbon dioxide has not already wiped him and his pineapple home from the bottom of the rising seas.

Few years ago, the sight of polar bears roaming the streets of a village or town would have been abnormal. Nowadays, it is normal because the land on which they live and hunt is under siege. As Arctic ice thins from melting, an occurrence linked to global warming, their habitat is shrinking and food supply is decreasing. As a result, they are moving out of their natural habitat and traveling hundreds of miles south of the Arctic region in search for food.

To tackle these and other new normals, every year since 1995, our leaders and/or their disciples have been meeting at various world capitals or cities, some of which are tourist hot spots―Bali, Cancun, Marrakech, Montreal, Paris―debating climate change in climate-controlled halls at the so-called Conference of Parties (COP). In order to feel what it is like living in one of the hottest places on Earth, maybe they should hold a future COP in halls without air conditioners in Jacobabad (Pakistan) during July when the average daytime temperature regularly surpasses 50 degrees.

The hype around these conferences is high, but expectations of the people are low because the proposals are not bold enough and interests of the developing countries are marginalised. Gone is the focus on establishing global “top down” approach for stabilising emissions of greenhouse gases that would be legally binding. On the contrary, focus is on voluntary “bottom up” commitments by individual nations to reduce emissions.

It has become clear that the much-touted Paris Agreement thrashed out at COP-21 for keeping the rise in global temperature this century to two degrees above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase even lower to 1.5 degrees is on life-support system. America under Donald Trump has withdrawn from the Paris Agreement as Donald Trump categorises global warming as “fake news!” Subsequent summits, including COP-25 in Madrid two months ago, were stuck in a rut. There is no agreement yet and none is in sight.

The UN Secretary-General António Guterres roped in some world leaders, members of civil societies and corporate executives at a climate summit in New York on September 23, 2019 to highlight their plans to bring down greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2050. As expected, they “prioritised” a laundry list of Action Portfolios without any firm commitment to implement them.

The star of the summit was Greta Thunberg, the 17-year old Swedish activist, who delivered a blunt speech, excoriating world leaders for their inaction. And the shameless world leaders clapped and cheered every time she chastised them with phrases like “How dare you,” or “You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words.” If they had any self-respect, they should have hung their head down in shame instead of applauding. They did not do so because they are “normal” 21st century leaders.

All said and done, what is the end game? Can pre-emptively embarking on a revolutionary change that will lead us away from dependency on fossil fuels and embracing eco-friendly renewable energies save our planet? Can we avoid the risk of a catastrophic failure of our increasingly ephemeral and tightly interlinked global civilisation as we know it? The answer to the above questions is NO, because our leaders lack the collective will to take the decisive steps required to keep our planet liveable for the future generations.

Scientists believe that if we started to cut down on emissions of carbon dioxide even by one percent in 1990, tackling climate change would have been manageable. Instead, we wasted 30 years by inaction. The inertia of the climate system is such that even if we stop introducing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere right now, the ones already in the atmosphere will keep on warming the Earth for another one to two hundred years before equilibrium is reached. In other words, climate change would keep on accelerating, regardless of what measures we take to mitigate its effects.

We can, however, partially solve the seemingly unsolvable problems we have created by changing the unsustainable lifestyle of many of us. More importantly, we have to work to address the problem of the world’s ever-growing population. We are probably within a few decades of a point in time where the sheer number of people on Earth will make continuing degradation of our planet irreversible. So, it is up to us whether we choose to take actions in a direction which will reduce overall global population.

Quamrul Haider is a Professor of Physics at Fordham University, New York.