THE POSTER CHILD OF THE ENVIRONMENT CRISIS

A malnourished kid on the poster scared us as a kid and we’d eat all on our plate to
not end up being unhealthy like him. We were taught to never waste or food
because somewhere in the world possibly from a warzone we are told and shown
about the kids who died of hunger. The poster child by its name is clear that it
represents a child on the poster. The poster child we have commonly and closely
been observing for the past few decades epitomizes a child from a poor
background or the one that turned to account a malnourished kid. In most cases,
the poster child usually represents poverty and unhealthy lifestyle. However those
kinds of pictures are made to raise awareness among the unaware communities.
Only in our case that is the poster child of the environment crisis, it happened to
become more about the environmental destructions that has been happening around
and some part of it that represents the climate activists around the globe.

If we look back at history, it seems that there have been various environmental
crises ever since there was existence of life on earth. While the initial stages of
crisis were the result of purely natural conditions where it is believed that a purely
natural global catastrophe caused loss of extensive forests due to which dinosaurs
no longer survived in thus formed cooler planet which gave development to the
grasslands and savannas for the survival of herbivorous like horses, cattles and
antelopes along with their predators in coming. It is till day believed that had it not
been for this natural cause, there would probably not be the development of human
species. The evolution of humans gave rise to more environmental crises as there
were development phases taking place which gave rise to hunting gathering
developed to become modern humans. It is also believed that at a point, due to a
volcanic eruption, the human population declined to ten thousand which could
have resulted in extinction of human species. The theories of humans surviving 
through ice contributes to yet another example of natural crisis as a closest one.
Nonetheless, the human species became the ultimate super being which resulted in
more destruction as development proceeded. Thereafter, now that humans were
able to communicate and create new innovations, human beings created more
threats in the environment as natural resources were being exploited for the
fulfillment of human desires and interests. The excessive use of natural resources
caused various damage to the environment causing deforestation, pollution,
chemical pollution after agricultural industrialization. The most catastrophic
drought and famine have occurred  first in human history long ago in the 19th
centuries. Especially after the second world war with the rise of industrialization
and use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides and even the nuclear plants, there came a
lot of issues in the environment. The human intelligence were later able to discover
ingenious ways to exploit the nature including the extraction of energy from
sources for human benefits causing as serious threats as nuclear explosion causing
dangerous and massive explosion such as the Chernobyl incident caused by a
nuclear accident in the 1986; some 34 years ago which still has an adverse effect
on life around the area and it is considered to be the world’s worst explosion. We
are well aware of the effect of the Hiroshima-Nagasaki bomb explosion which
caused the lives of thousands of people.

In the beginning of the year 2020, the Australian bush fire took a toll all over the
news media and social sites for several weeks. The fire had started in October.
Even though Australia have had bushfires earlier, this season have been worse than
usual causing lives of different species even extinction of few spreading over 10
million hectares of land with unprecedented heatwaves and temperature reaching
120 F. The average annual temperature in Australia has been increasing. Similarly,
the 2020 California wildfire series is a season of ongoing wildfires burning across
the state of California over 4% of the land about 100 million acres. It is also the
largest wildfire season recorded in California’s modern history. The total of 9,279
fires has been burnt this year only in California. The news about floods and
landslides is quite common in our country Nepal itself. 

While all these destruction and damage happening around the world, there are few
faces that represents the collective voices for the urge to end climate change crisis.
Young activists like Greta Thunberg, Licypriya Kangujam often comes in the
limelight when it comes to poster child of environment crisis. There are scientists
and researchers who have claimed that climate change is real and the whole world
need to be attentive about it and act immediately. For a long time now, discussions
have been going on about the ban in single use plastic. And as Greta once said in a
Ted, “If a few children can get headlines all over the world just by not coming to
school for few weeks, imagine what we could all do together if we want to?” and
that we need hope but the one thing we need more than hope is action; once we
start to act, hope is everywhere.

Reerences:

1. Australia: A Poster Child for Climate Change - American Security Project  American Security
Project
2. https://pdf.sciencedirectassets.com/