The Cost Of Human Error On The Environment

Speaking at a technical information day hosted by the Dried Fruit Technical Services and Canning Fruit Producers’ Association, environmentalist Dave Pepler focused on individual responsibility in terms of climate change and damage to the environment.

- Dave Pepler

I first realised that climate change was a reality while on a trip to Iceland. We visited Vatnajökull, one of the largest glaciers in Europe by volume. It spans over 8000km², averages 500m in depth, and has a total volume of about 4500km3. It was obvious that the glacier is melting. Moreover, it’s melting at an unprecedented speed, much faster than anybody predicted.

South Africa is also affected by climate change. I recently drove past a dam in Nuy in the Western Cape. It’s usually filled with flamingos at this time of the year, but there weren’t any flamingos; the dam was too shallow because of the drought. The surrounding veld was also uncharacteristically barren.

Some might say this is a singular event, or something that happens every seven years, but the problem is that we no longer know how climate change will affect the region. Simply put, we are unable to predict what will happen because we don’t understand the intricacies of nature. Here’s an example: A major malaria epidemic broke out in a heavily forested region of Borneo in 1953. The age of the Bornean rainforest has been estimated at around 130 million years, which is older than the Amazon rainforest. So, what was done to manage the malaria epidemic? The country resorted to the best method they knew: spraying dichloro-diphenyl trichloroethane (DDT). It had devastating consequences.