Weathering the storms

This was not the scene in Bridgetown yesterday, but shows a man jumping into floodwater in India, swollen from the effects of monsoon weather in Asia (courtesy of Associated Press, see CNN report). The tropical wave that hit Barbados yesterday and dumped heavy rains on the island are a sharp reminder of how delicate is the balance in the environment, and that we need to keep an eye on extreme weather. Today's local papers (see The Nation, August 8) signal once again the concerns that are always there. When there is a long spell of dry weather, we see the threat of drought, withered crops, and higher food prices. When there is heavy rain, we see the threat of floods, crops that cannot be harvested or will spoil, and possible higher food prices. We already import large amounts of foods amongst other things, and we can already sense that despite urgings that this tendency be curbed, it is not a simple matter.

Those of us who are not experts but are concerned search for guidance from the "experts". But consistently we find that the "experts" cannot agree about what is going on. Is global warming the real problem? What can we do to change our behaviours to reduce the risks? When I try to find out more I end up confused.

The experts are failing to agree about the causes of extreme weather. Researchers Greg J. Holland and Peter J. Webster concluded that the increases coincided with rising sea surface temperature, largely the byproduct of human-induced climate warming. However, after these findings were published online this Sunday by Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, an official at the National Hurricane Center called the research "sloppy science" and said technological improvements in observing storms accounted for the increase.

So what should we do? Something or nothing? We in small countries are not so much of the problem if this is man-made. But we can suffer enormously from man-made changes that affect the world's climate. A large part of our economic existence depends on the benefits that nature has given us. If we believe that man-made changes are causing the bulk of the climatic changes we need to make sure that our small voices start to be heard much more. Even so, that may not make the big countries take notice, but at least we can say that we tried to make them take notice. This is an effort that governments need to push, but it is also an effort that needs to be pushed from a broader section of the population.