The challenge of climate change

WORLD leaders, including President Muhammadu Buhari, recently met in Paris, France, where for about three days, they discussed one of troubling issues in the world. It is climate change. At the end of the talks, they all agreed that the issue that brought them together needed a collective effort to tackle. President Buhari assured the world of Nigeria’s commitment to reduce gas emissions by 20 percent in the coming years.

Even though Africa emits just 2 percent of the gas­es that have contributed to the depletion of the ozone layer,the continent bears the larger burden of the prob­lems emanating from climate change. To understand the mystery of creation and the existence of man is a task that cannot be abandoned to mere scientific deductions alone. Events in time have opened up dif­ferent vistas of knowledge that were hitherto viewed with a lot of cynicism. Man’s undoing has always been his reluctance to acknowledge his limitation and ascribe omnipotence to the supreme creator-the Fa­ther. It is my considered opinion that Science should redirect its focus when the present solutions proffered to climate change fails to yield desired result.

Many will think it is defeatist but, you will be sur­prised at how quick a solution we may arrive at, if only we believe. Now, consider this. Creation is held firm by invisible pillars which no eyes can see. Can science explain why the skies hang above us and on what the sun, the moon and the stars hang onto?

The intention of the gradual depletion of the ozone layer is supposedly for man to repent and seek the face of God. But mankind keeps degenerating from bad to worse, to the extent of recklessly cavorting over evil deeds which even demons often commit with trepi­dation. There are also accounts in the old testament that give credence to the event that led Moses freeing the Israelites out of slavery was as a result of global warming and a volcanic eruption. But rather than explain this as an act of God, scientists claimed the plagues can be attributed to a chain of natural phenomena triggered by changes in the climate and environmental disasters that happened hundreds of miles away. Scientists believe the switch in the climate before the volcanic eruption was the trigger for the first of the plagues.

The rising temperatures could have turned the river Nile into a slow moving and muddy watercourse and these conditions would have been perfect for the arrival of the first plague, which the Bible described as the Nile turning to blood. Dr Stephan Pflugmacher, a biologist at the Leibniz Institute for Water Ecology and Inland Fish­eries in Berlin, believes this description could have been the result of a toxic fresh water algae.

He said the bacterium, known as Burgundy Blood al­gae or Oscillatoria rubescens, is known to have existed 3,000 years ago and still causes similar effects today. He said: “It multiplies massively in slow-moving warm wa­ters with high levels of nutrition. And as it dies, it stains the water red.” The scientists also claim the arrival of this algae set in motion the events that led to the second, third and forth plagues – frogs, lice and flies. The arrival of the toxic algae would have forced the frogs to leave the water where they lived. But as the frogs died, their dead bodies attracted flies and that would have meant that mosqui­toes, flies and other insects would have flourished with­out the predators to keep their numbers under control.

The volcanic eruption is also thought to be respon­sible for triggering the seventh, eighth and ninth plagues that brought hail, locusts and darkness to Egypt. One of the biggest volcanic eruptions in human history occurred when Thera, a volcano that was part of the Mediterra­nean islands of Santorini, exploded around 3,500 year ago, spewing billions of tons of volcanic ash into the atmosphere. Nadine von Blohm, from the Institute for Atmospheric Physics in Germany, has been conducting experiments on how hailstorms form and believes that the volcanic ash could have clashed with thunderstorms above Egypt to produce dramatic hail storms. Dr Siro Trevisanato, a Canadian biologist who has written a book about the plagues, said the locusts could also be explained by the volcanic fallout from the ash. He said: “The ash fallout caused weather anomalies, which translates into higher precipitations, higher humidity. And that’s exactly what fosters the presence of the locusts.” The volcanic ash could also have blocked out the sunlight, causing the stories of a plague of darkness.

The cause of the final plague, the death of the first borns of Egypt, has been suggested as being caused by a fungus that may have poisoned the grain supplies, of which male first born would have had first pickings and so been first to fall victim. This is wonderful explana­tion by science, but it’s 3,500 years now, and none of such plagues has repeated itself in any city in the world. Is this science or mystery? I do not think that science has even been able to explain the source of the hailstorm, the fiery boulders that came down from the skies upon Sodom and Gomorrah? Or has science been able to ex­plain the flood that happened during the time of Noah? Or where the flood water that covered the whole world drained into? From whatever angle environmental scien­tists have tried to explain climate change, few have cared to look at the Biblical perspectives.

Now again, science is attributing the depleting of the ozone layer whose direct consequence is global warm­ing, to industrial carbon emission. Industrial carbon emission is only catalytic. My humble opinion is to take a holistic look at all the causative factors and take a col­lective, global action. That’s not to dismiss the decisions taken in Paris.

Nevertheless, it is cheering news that Nigeria has com­mitted to a 20% unconditional emissions reduction, post 2020. Thanks to our President .Well, I pray that the world leaders will adhere strictly to the upcoming agreement that will be reached and do their best to meet their agreed commitments.