I know what comes to the mind when you think of World Peace. You are thinking no war, no guns and missiles, and no resultant deaths, more compassion, and acceptance. Is this all that peace is about?
Let me draw you a slightly different, a more basic, picture. World Peace: let’s think of greenery, clean air, lesser illnesses, more well-fed healthy people, sharing, caring, and love.
At a ceremony in observance of World Peace, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said, “Peace is more than just the absence of war; it is about respect, tolerance, and striving societies in which people live in harmony with each other and with the environment.”
For 2019, the International Day of Peace has been themed “Climate Action for Peace”.
It is imperative to learn and to educate others of the quickly growing impact of our changing climate on the wellbeing and sanctity of the human population.
Our climate is changing for the worse and has been progressively deteriorating for the past few decades owing to the substantial use of fossil fuel, deforestation, and lack of recycling.
In its Fifth Assessment Report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a group of 1,300 independent scientific experts from countries all over the world under the auspices of the United Nations, concluded there's a more than 95 percent probability that human activities over the past 50 years have warmed our planet.
Climate change (and Global Warming) is majorly responsible for catastrophic natural disasters, including floods, droughts, and higher intensity and frequency of wildfires.
Did you know natural disasters like these are displacing three times as many people as conflict!
In struggling to survive in the face of adversities Earth is losing valuable resources; resources that humans have been benefitting from. This faster than gradual repealing of the Earth’s treasure has placed tension between people and countries. For example, a key factor behind conflict in many developing and underdeveloped regions of the world is drought caused by climate change! It has accelerated the competition between farmers and herders for scarce resources.
Humans are fighting against each other in their fight for a bigger chunk of these depleting resources, and not many are realizing that the focus should be elsewhere and the effort should be mutual.
-Written by Dr Hira M Khan
