For a climate change column, writing about anything other than Chennai seems out of place. But so much has been already written about Chennai. Most of the readers will understand that global warming perhaps played a role in the unusual rains. This was compounded by an unmanaged urban sprawl that appropriated land from water bodies and sapped water channels of their main purpose: to carry water. A google search for #Chennairains yielded 25, 00,000hits, while #Chennairainshelp yields a smaller 1, 24,000. Everyone knows someone in their first circle who is coordinating relief efforts. Is there more to add? Perhaps.
First, to provide context, let us ask: Was this caused by global warming?
One of the less endearing traits of global warming is the multiplicity of fingerprints it leaves on various ecosystems of the world. What were the ones this year?
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Officials from NOAA and NASA are 99% sure that 2015 is the hottest year on record. Officials from the IMD are more certain: it is the hottest year, with temperatures in November being 1.25°C above normal.
The El Nino effect this year, driven by warmer temperatures in the eastern Pacific Ocean, held by many to be directly responsible for the Chennai rains, is one of the strongest on record.
Unseasonal rain in early 2015 led to record crop losses in Rabi crop in India, estimated by CSE to be in the vicinity of Rs. 20,000 crore. This is the third year running when unseasonal rain during harvest time has played havoc with agricultural yield of the Rabi crop. Higher temperatures in November and December of this year are causing delays in sowing wheat this year.
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Nearly 2,500 people died in the heat wave of late May, mainly in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, where temperatures reached 48°C.
We have had two weak monsoons in a row.
This is the textbook definition of how the impacts of global warming could play out in India: heat waves, changes in rainfall patterns and a probable increase in rainfall intensity.
Scientists will study models and will argue on whether climate change directly caused this particular tragedy or not. But they will all agree on one thing: with the temperatures rising, such events will definitely become more common in the days to come.
The next question could be: Could we have done better?
Well, we’ve reduced the number of water bodies in Chennai from 650 to less than 30. We have caused the decline of marshland area by 90%. We have tolerated the dumping of debris into the rivers and encroachments of flood plains. We know garbage piles up everywhere blocking sewers. Even if our eyes were blind, and we couldn’t smell, the rise in Dengue would serve to warn us.
Should we feign shock? There are so many articles about how humanity has risen while Chennai has sunk. There are hundreds of volunteers and service staff helping, helping: one friend put it as an 18 hour shift – every day – many of whom are placing their personal safety at risk. They are heroes. However, will the milk of human kindness run thinner when repeated shocks makes the novelty of being a hero wear off?
While it is convenient and comforting to blame the democratically elected politicians for the urban mess, this really was a team effort. From the papers that carried full page advertisement of glossy apartments built on marshland, to the millions of dollars of investment that poured in to finance the construction, to the thousands of jobs that the construction offered – either directly or indirectly to the thousands of people who happily bought the apartments, there were many players in the game.
The analogy that springs to mind is this: a man leads a stressful life, travels a lot and eats out a lot. He gives up exercising, sits on the couch and snacks away. He wears away his coping mechanisms a little at a time. When his wife asks him to eat healthier or exercise, he snaps “Leave me alone. Can’t you see I’m really busy? Be more understanding. Then he has a heart attack, followed by another one shortly thereafter.
Yes, it is hard for our society to be less tolerant of lapses in the provision of services. Many of us have so little skin-in-the-game: the rich live in isolated cocoons. Even in the floods, the generators ran providing electricity. The poor often live in a parallel economy. Many of the poor don’t pay for the government services (often ending up paying higher to private parties), so don’t believe they can demand any quality, until of course, they lose everything in an incident such as this. The middle class, impotently sandwiched in between, seethe. We are even proud of our “Jugaad” way of coping, little realising that this chronic neglect will only result in tragedy.
But it is time to be less tolerant of this tendency in ourselves: to look away, to accept, to cope with a quick fix– that is the way to our salvation.
(Climaction is a fortnightly column that is published in MetroPlus Weekend on alternate Fridays. The views expressed in the articles are those of the author.)
The next article in this series will appear on December 25, 2015.
Feedback and questions may be e-mailed to climaction2015@gmail.com
(Mridula Ramesh is the Executive Director of Sundaram Textiles. She is also a student and teacher of global warming.)