PRE-EMPTING ZERO DARK ZERO

CLIMATE CHANGE IS SET TO BECOME THE GREATEST THREAT TO INDIA’S FUTURE UNLESS WE CAN GET OUR ACT TOGETHER

- RAJ CHENGAPPA

Seven minutes to midnight. That was the setting of the doomsday clock the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists devised in 1947 to indicate just how close humanity was to a man-made global catastrophe caused by unchecked scientific and technological advances. Initially meant to warn of the dangers of a nuclear war, in recent decades, the threats caused by climate change have made the clock tick even faster. The Covid pandemic is a grim reminder of the consequences of upsetting nature’s fragile balance by overexploiting earth’s resources. The big message being, act now or face horrendous consequences.

Two goals are critical to India’s environment. The first was set in 1952 when the country’s national forest policy targeted bringing 33 per cent of India’s geographical area under forest cover. The needle for that goal has moved only a little, with the total forest cover being 21.67 per cent in 2019, 11 percentage points short. Untrammelled urbanisation and a population explosion that has seen India add a billion people since Independence have not only destroyed vast amounts of our natural resources but also exerted tremendous strain on what’s left of them. Experts believe afforesting a third of India’s land mass will be a distant dream unless we radically change how we go about development.