The Hindu Business Line : Climate change is showing

Irregular weather is becoming routine in many parts of Europe. Average temperatures, precipitation and wind patterns are changing faster than any time in the past.

Mohan Murti

In Europe, the weather had been so pleasingly placid that many plants and trees in my garden thought it was still spring. Summer seems to have waited all summer to get here, in autumn. The leaves of the big oak and chestnut trees in my garden have already turned colour and begun to drop their leaves. Not because it's autumn. Perhaps, because it's their natural biological clock that tells them to ‘shed'.

For the first time in my two decades in Europe, we discovered fruit flies ( Drosophilia) inside the house. This, I am told, is an evolutionary response to rapid climate change.

Ground realities

Next week, around 75 heads of state and other VIPs are to fly into Copenhagen when the high-level segment of COP15 opens on December 15. World leaders are expected to discuss a legally-binding international climate treaty to succeed the Kyoto Protocol. High time this happened. Against this backdrop, here's a glimpse of the ground realities in Europe.

Irregular weather is becoming routine in many parts of Europe. Average temperatures, precipitation and wind patterns are changing rapidly. The average temperature in summer is hotter than it has been (I think) at any time in the past. The vedic tradition is that ‘water is life' (‘ Aapo vaa idagam sarvam'). Elsewhere, in the Vedas, it is said “fire, indeed, is the foundation and support for water”. The relationship between water and fire is intimate. One begets the other. Between 2000 and 2009, some 50,000 fires occurred each year in the Mediterranean region, compared with 30,000 a year in the 1980s. More than 5 per cent of the forest area in Greece, Spain and Portugal has been burned, four times the annual average, resulting in economic damages exceeding €3 billion. In 2003, the heat wave in Europe killed over 50,000 people.

In Srimad Bhagavatam, Vyasa catalogues four forms of life — yonijam (born from the womb), andajam (born of the egg), bhoomijam (born from the earth) and swetajam (born of sweat or function of body). Keeping Vyasa's description of life conception, Europe is fighting a new war. Let's take a look.

Wild Boars

Wild boar — Varaha Avatar — numbers have been surging as a result of global warming and the large-scale cultivation of maize and rapeseed for biofuel. Germany has vast areas in which boars can flourish.

‘Heater winters' in recent years have reduced the death rate of older boars and of young ones born late in the year. And, the rise in carbon dioxide levels has intensified the sunlight and led trees to produce more acorns and chestnuts, a weakness for boars, whose reproduction naturally increases with the amount of accessible food.

Ladybugs

The northern German port city of Hamburg has seen in summer this year, an influx of the Asian ladybug ( Harmonia axyridis), thanks to mild weather and humid summer days. The beetles have spread quickly throughout Europe.

The influx in the ladybug population is cause to cheer for gardeners. They serve as a natural, biological pest control. While the average beetle eats between 50 and 250 aphids a day, the Asian species is known to eat five times as many. Their voracious appetite has threatened the European species. Also, the Asian ladybug lays eggs twice in a season, compared to once by the European species.

Migratory Patterns

The Europe-wide warm spell in the past few years has disrupted the migratory patterns of thousands of birds.

We have a few European red squirrels in our garden that mostly feed on chestnuts, seeds, berries, hazelnuts, and beech flowers. Normally, in autumn, these squirrels bury seeds and nuts. This autumn, they are still running around the garden, delightfully feasting on them. I wonder what will happen to them when the weather suddenly gets to icy sub-zero temperatures.

Corals of Eifel Straits

A short 45-minutes drive from Cologne is the picturesque and charming Eifel region — bordered by the Mosel River in the south and the Rhine in the east. In the north it is bordered by the hills of the High Fens (Hohes Venn), and in the west by the Ardennes. The Ardennes is a region of extensive forests, rolling hills and old mountains formed on the Givetian Ardennes mountains, primarily in Belgium and Luxembourg, but stretching into France.

An enriching experience is the visit to the Geological and Nature Museum in a small town in the Nettersheim region. The museum showcases the ‘Eifel Straits' and the shallow warm sea that Nettersheim and the region were in the middle Devonian period, 380 to 400 million years ago. The sea extended hundreds of kilometres and the cities of Cologne and Düsseldorf were beach resorts at that time.

The sea was inhabited by reef-building organisms and their fossilised remains, including corals, can be found by any visitor to Nettersheim in the open fields, quarries and construction sites.

Proactive action

This shows that climate change is a natural occurrence and has been happening for millions of years. Whether it is part influenced by man is important, more so today than ever before. The earth will change and we will need to adapt. But that does not prevent us from taking proactive action by doing our bit.

For India, climate change must not become a distraction from dealing with high growth or removing poverty. Rather, it is the essential step in avoiding a decline into deeper devastation and ruin. India should not be the hesitant, unwilling bride of climate change. It should be an innovator and a leader in the struggle. Now is the moment to take guard and get on with the action.

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