Chennai has been unseasonably warm during this visit, compared to my trips the last few Decembers. The overnight low, which is normally around 65 degrees, has been consistently and significantly above that — typically about 73 degrees. Is this a mere blip in the weather pattern, or a part of the overall climate change story?
Thanks to the cooler early morning temperatures, stepping out for a walk at 5 a.m. is an activity that I always look forward to. For one, it will be months before Eugene warms up to that temperature, and therefore I feel an urgency to enjoy the warmth.
Also, after having become accustomed to the milder Oregon climate, while I rush around the park in Chennai wearing shorts and a T-shirt, it is quite a sight to see the young and the old walk and jog wearing woolen beanies, scarves and sweaters. I suppose after getting used to temperatures in the high 90s and in the triple digits for most of the year, 65 can seem relatively cold to them.
This time, though, my sister mentioned the other day that she has yet to take the woolen blankets and sweaters out of the boxes. It is no wonder, then, that I have spotted very few people wearing sweaters in the park.
The much warmer overnight temperatures also have made the city a fertile breeding ground for mosquitoes. While not as huge as the mosquitoes that sucked the blood out of me in Alaska, the smaller ones here in Chennai are equally thirsty for nourishment and seem to enjoy my “American” blood, much to my discomfort!
Yet there is very little talk about the weather and climate change. Those topics have been pushed way back by the worsening economic conditions and the possibility of a war with Pakistan.
Furthermore, all it takes is one trip outside the comfortable enclaves in cities to the smaller towns and villages, where the majority of India lives, to understand why climate change fails to register as the biggest worry for the struggling millions. Thousands of villages and towns in India lack even the basic necessities of sanitation facilities and a protected and clean water supply.
As one commentator put it recently in an Indian newspaper, “Out of the 1.2 billion people who defecate in the open worldwide because they have no access to toilets, more than half are Indian.” Ouch!
When daily life for millions is thus severely constrained by economic and public health limitations, it is not difficult to understand why these issues might take precedence over climate change.
I am not dismissing the reality that as more and more Indians, Chinese and the rest of the world’s population become affluent, the more they also are going to contribute to global climate change — particularly given the reliance on inefficient carbon- based energy sources. And, of course, we could make a convincing point that even the poor in villages and cities need to worry about climate change because we are all doomed to experience its effects, irrespective of how poor or affluent we are. But the importance of climate change pales in relation to the immediate struggles of daily life.
Thus, with every trip, I am convinced even more that the burden is on us in the advanced countries, and the United States in particular, to take the lead on tackling this global environmental challenge. (It is ironic, indeed, that I should write about climate change after having traveled to the other side of the world in highly polluting jet planes!)
The economic recession gives us an opportunity to consider our enormous consumption — which is, after all, a significant part of the climate change story. We need environmental equivalents of Slim Fast to get us on to a consumption regimen that can help slow down this urgent global problem. The highly influential Oprah Winfrey can launch a “climate change diet” program — perhaps even a separate television channel, “O!-lite,” that will be exclusively devoted to this topic.
Maybe we can employ one strategy that we have used to educate and alert consumers about dietary consumption — the nutritional labels on food packages.
I can imagine easily the packing on the 56-inch high-definition TV or an iPhone having a “climate change” information chart similar to the nutritional labels — information on carbon dioxide emissions, for instance, comparable to the calorie data on a chocolate bar. We can then make decisions as informed consumers, just as some of us avoid junk food packed with fats.
Otherwise, it is equally possible that the bloodthirsty mosquitoes of Chennai will enjoy the warmer world, and write the final chapters of the planet’s story.
Published in the Register Guard, Jan 4, 2009
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