By Mac Bellingham
Imagine your house being overrun by dirty, muddy water. Your town or city even. The government calling for an evacuation, but the helicopters have nowhere to land. You are stuck. Imagine having no food. Imagine your family and friends all contracting waterborne diseases. For the people in Pakistan, this is their reality.
Recently, many flash floods have devastated Pakistan. According to their Climate Change Minister, Sherry Rehman, about ⅓ of the country is underwater. The death toll is above 1300 people, many of which are young children. Houses and property are being destroyed by the water, including large farms that feed the country, leading to a food crisis. Thousands of people are evacuating into ‘camps’, but life is not much better there.
Life there is miserable
Fazal Malik, a Pakistani living in these camps
It’s a terrible situation, but why is this happening? Floods happen all the time, but it’s seemingly never to this extent. The answer: climate change, something that is slowly killing our planet, and something that we take action against, or we will eventually pay the price.
What is Climate Change?
Everyone has heard the term being thrown around, but what is it exactly? In its most basic definition: climate change is a shift in temperature or weather pattern.
It’s mostly natural, but when most people refer to climate change, they are referring to global warming: a shift in weather patterns or temperature through human activity. This human activity is mostly from burning fossil fuels, which releases greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. These wrap around the Earth, almost like a blanket, trapping heat inside it. The temperatures on our Earth are slowly rising up as more greenhouse gases are released. Our temperatures have already risen by 1.2º since the 1800s. This number may seem small but just look at the impacts already.
Consequences on Developing Countries
This temperature increase has caused many natural disasters, namely intense rainfall. This intense rainfall is what led to Pakistan’s flash floods. According to the BBC, before the rainfall and flooding, Pakistan experienced one of its hottest summers yet, reaching above 40ºC in many different places. Warmer air traps moisture, leading to a build-up of water before heavy rain. Above-average rainfall was predicted, but they didn’t expect this. Pakistan also has many glaciers, which were melted by heat. As the glaciers flowed downhill, they picked up sediment, leading to the water’s dirty look.
Why should Pakistan have to suffer for richer countries’ mistakes? It doesn’t contribute much to CO2 emissions, compared to larger urban cities. Why should they be the ones to start taking the hits? But it’s not just Pakistan. As of late, many other third-world countries have had similar experiences:
July 5, 2022: Flooding in Bangladesh
August 24, 2022: Flooding in the Gambia
Our Next Steps
When would it start to affect the first world countries, the ones mostly responsible for this situation in the first place? The answer: sooner than you think. Amsterdam, New Orleans, Venice, all these cities are predicted to be underwater by 2030. That’s less than a decade away. These effects are catching up fast, and it seems that by the time we act on it, it’s going to be too late.
We should be thinking of these floods as a tragedy, yes, but a preventable one. This should serve as a wake-up call. A message from Mother Nature. Especially to the first world countries that are emitting 50 billion tonnes of CO2 each year, dooming our planet and everything that lives on it. Global warming should be taken as the serious issue it is, and we should all be taking measures to help stop it, otherwise we will the ones to pay the price.