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Friday, 11 September 2009

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Arresting climate change

Yet another UN Climate Summit is to be held this year to save the planet from extinction. The Copenhagen confab aims to set curbs on emissions of heat trapping greenhouse gasses beyond 2012. The Summit comes at a time when global warming is taking a heavy toll on the global ecosystem. What is more, third world countries which have gone to great lengths to protect their environment are becoming increasingly vulnerable.

Already Nepal is feeling the effects of the phenomenon with a rapid melting of its glaciers in the Himalayas which threaten to dry up all the rivers of the land-locked nation. Also animal, aquatic and plant life has been threatened in large swathes of the Asian region. The fast dwindling glaciers in the antipodes is having a knock down effect elsewhere in the world interfering with ecosystems.

Meanwhile the UN's Inter Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has warned that a rise in sea levels of between 8 to 59 centimetres (7.2 to 23.2 inches) by 2100 would be enough to make Maldives inhabitable. Its President is on record stating his Government has started saving money to buy a new homeland for its people to flee in the future.

It may have been a remark made in jest. But it is certainly no laughing matter. Very soon the world is going to pay a very heavy price for the greed of a few who had failed make provision vis a vis environmental factors in their head long rush for industrialisation. This cavalier attitude towards nature has now come to haunt these very nations.

Had the industrialised nations paused to consider the long-term damage their actions would cause to the well-being of the environment the world would have been spared this panic. But greed and the race to outdo the rest blinded them to the repercussions whereas a more planned out development strategy would have minimised the damage.

Now there is a flurry of activity by these very nations to get others to apply environmental standards with global seminars, conferences and workshops conducted almost round the clock. Invariably targeted are the poor developing countries who had no hand in the crime. On the contrary it is rest of the world who is now suffering the consequences of the runaway industrialisation by these countries without a thought to environmental impact. Worse, the third world countries like the Nepal are feeling the heat so to speak of the global warming triggered by greenhouse emissions.

Already warnings have been sounded that Sri Lanka's marine eco-system will be affected due to sea level rise around its coastal zone due to melting of the Himalayas.

Therefore the problem related to Himalayas has become a regional phenomenon. Maldives will not be the only country in the region that will be affected by the rise in its sea levels. Sri Lanka too is beginning to feel the effects. Already we are witnessing a distortion in the weather patterns and the seasons. Many of our once gushing waterways and spouts have run dry and a marked change in the ecosystem is being observed. The abnormal heat and humidity experienced often is also an indication that global warming is having its impact in these parts of the world.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa has speeded up the process of sustainable development in a bid to salvage the situation somewhat for Sri Lanka, difficult though it may be, to combat the phenomenon which is all consuming.

Therefore all third world countries should band themselves together to play a more active role to protect their own backyards from the invading cancer.

They should make their voices heard more at these Global conferences on Environment to demand effective measures at damage control. For, it is the poor countries who are now paying the price for the follies of the unrestrained industrialisation of the big world powers who appear yet unrepentant.

For, these workshops and Global Summits have yielded nothing by way of safety with the powerful countries shying away from committing themselves to environment protection that would compromise their development plans. Most of these summits have ended in stalemates while global warming assumes new dimensions. It is time the third world insists, enough is enough.

New strategy to withstand global economic recession

As you are well aware, Sri Lanka is a small player in the global economy of $60 trillion ($ 60000 billion) with only a G.D.P. of $ 35 billion. Though it had a fairly impressive social development record, with a G.D.P. growth rate of 6 - 7 percent in the last 3 years, and a higher per capita income,

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Latin American strategy on drugs

Latin American states are dramatically changing their strategy on illegal drugs - by ceasing to make war on drug users. Earlier this year, former presidents of Brazil, Mexico and Colombia published a report calling for more humane policies on drugs, and now Argentina’s Supreme Court, in a landmark decision, has ruled that it is unconstitutional to punish people for consuming marijuana.

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The Stolen Generations:

Most blemished chapterin Australian history

The Stolen Generations is a term used to describe those children of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander descent who were removed from their families by the Australian government under Parliamentary Act in 1869.

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