M Mahfuzur Rahman:
We
had six traditional seasons- Grishma (summer), Barsha (rainy), Sarat (autumn),
Hemanta (late autumn), Shhit (winter) and Basanta (spring) when the climate of
Bangladesh, the South Asian nation, was mainly temperate with every season had
different pleasant characters. This temperate climate- cool winters and mild
summers - was very much comfortable for us.
First
and foremost, Grishma comprises Baishakh and Jyaistha (mid-April to mid-June), the
two Bangla calendar months, when days are seemed hot and dry. Barsha usually spreads
over Asharh and Shraban (mid-June to mid-August) lasting two to three months
and in some parts of the country, it lasts for four months. The dark clouds in a
grey sky is the characteristic of our rainy season.
Secondly, Sarat lasts during Bhadra and Ashwin (mid-August to mid-October). This is
traditional and one of the beautiful seasons we have when housewives are seen
putting out clothes, musty and damp because of the rains, to air and dry in the
hot sun of Bhadra. The cloudy and grey sky turns to clouds floating in a
blue sky with the nights and mornings cool.
Hemanta
sets with Kartik and Agrahayan (mid-October to mid-December) as this is a
transitional phase between autumn and winter, getting the evenings to grow cool
when farmers are found very busy with harvesting paddy, celebrating countrywide
Nabanna Utsav (the festival of a new crop). We find a lot of smiles and happiness
on the faces of farmers during those days.
Therefore
Shhit is the colder part of the year spreading over the months of Paush and Magh
(mid-December to mid-February) of the Bangla calendar with getting the weather
drier. Temperature goes down with the nights are longer over days. Mornings are
often enjoyable with foggy nature. Plants shed their leaves. To most of us,
this winter is the best and most enjoyable as we find a large variety of vegetables
available in the markets, and enjoy drinking Date juice. We celebrate the season by arranging a handful of pitha festivals (festivals that arrange special food
items). Oh! What the childhood is!
Hence
although the Basanta is a brief season, covering Phalgun and Chaitra
(mid-February to mid-April) of the six seasons. The weather is pleasant during this
season with its comfortable temperature, calling it the king of all seasons.
But the duration of this season has decreased over the years when the
length of winter, summer and rainy seasons increased.
These
were the stories of lovely seasons we had been enjoying since the history began.
Our economy, communication, trade and commerce, art and culture and our entire
lifestyles as well had been reeled with these seasons.
But we,
the Bangladeshis, in this region have been experiencing abnormal behaviours of
the weather pattern over the years with significant negative changes in the
environment and climate, life and our livelihood even though the weather
patterns changed globally. We are not finding out now those of our restrained
seasons in which our childhood and adolescent stories are underlying.
We, at
this age of thirties, are now missing those of the days of childhood! It's a
bad thing for us to bear. Even we missed the weather when my parents were born.
Because we can easily guess that the weather, surely, was much more comfortable
during their time of birth than ours! Similarly, my daughter is now nearly 12 months old. That means she is witnessing severe hot and severe cold weather with the
disastrous climate around her! She won't believe in our childhood environment
when she gets older.
We're
now experiencing heatwaves, drought extreme precipitation and event
life-threatening cold over the years that exclude our regular natural seasons.
People suffer from floods, cyclones, droughts, salinity and river erosion, and
the poorer people are affected more than others. Who is responsible for this arrogant behaviour of nature against us?
A recent
study says Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh, has witnessed a rise in
temperature of almost 3 degrees Celsius in 20 years! According to the
Climate Risk Index- 2021, on the other hand, Bangladesh is 7th most
vulnerable to climate change. We've lost nearly 11,450 people, suffered
economic losses worth $3.72 billion and witnessed 185 extreme weather events
from 2000-2019 due to climate change (Bangladesh remains 7th most vulnerable to
climate change, 2021, TBS).
United
Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) statistics say the future of over 19 million
children in Bangladesh is at risk by climate change events! How dreadful it
is! The people of Puerto Rico, Myanmar, Haiti, the Philippines, Mozambique, The
Bahamas, Pakistan, Thailand, and Nepal, however, are also on the most affected
list of climate change!
Although
there are other natural reasons behind the climate change crises, human
activities have been the main driver of climate change since the 1800s, primarily due
to burning fossil fuels (coal, oil and gas etc). The usage of fossil fuels
produces greenhouse gas emissions that cause the rising of temperatures on
Earth with the emissions continuing to rise.
Being a major concern of climate change, Carbon dioxide is said to be the primary
greenhouse gas emitted through human activities when China, The United States, India,
The Russian Federation and Japan respectively produce most of it. Rhodium
Group's research, according to a BBC report says China emitted 27% of the world's
greenhouse gases in 2019 with 10.06 billion metric tons in 2018 while the US
was the second-largest emitter at 11% and India was third with 6.6% of
emissions in 2019.
Facing
widespread criticism China promised to become carbon neutral before 2060. However, these pledges are not trustworthy to the people because the heavily
industrialized countries have been breaching their own promises repeatedly over
climate change. It's good news that President Biden is appointing climate
experts and coming up with taking global leadership again on the climate change
issues after the Trump debacle withdrawing them from the Paris Climate Agreement drafted in 2015 in a bid to strengthen the global response to the
threat of climate change. The Clinton administration, however, was unable to
secure Senate backing for the Kyoto Protocol, signed in 1997. It's proof of a long negative approach towards addressing climate change from the US part.
Shifting
to India's school of thought on climate change, we see that Narendra Modi has committed
to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2070. Is it trustworthy? I'm confused! But
if I trust this why is it not by the 2030s, 40s, 50s, or 60s? Why are these pledges
going far-reaching?
Leaders!
We, the people of what you label as 'third world' categorically, are the
victims of climate change by those of the high-emitters in a large portion.
They are thirsty for urbanization and industrialization and they are taking
part in completion to implement that! These countries are devastating us by
damaging the next generations, endangering their life and livelihoods. It has
drastically changed our weather, with the extinction of usual seasons over the
years. We've lost at least two of the seasons due to the effects of climate change
events, breaking chains of seasons. If you visit our southern parts of
Bangladesh, you will find most of them underwater affected by frequent floods,
cyclones and rising sea levels or by some other forms of climate change.
Nearly 400,000 people each year enter the cities affected by the climate
change events! It's on the rise!
To recapitulate, I think, as all assume; climate actions require significant financial investments by the heavily industrialized nations and businesses globally for the small and the overpopulated countries like Bangladesh. These countries should provide vigorous economic support to these developing nations to mitigate the losses. It's compensation on their part not relief. We ask for returns rather than seeking aid. We ask the industrialized countries to fulfil the commitment they made to provide $100 billion a year to developing countries in adapting and for the move of a greener economy. We ask the developed countries to decrease emissions from this moment as we can't wait until the 50s, 60s and 70s. We ask the developed countries to offer our kids a sound climate, not relief, please! Return our non-aggressive six seasons to our children.
The writer is a Dhaka-based journalist and he can be reached at mahfuzjnu21@yahoo.com.
Follow the link to read the main article published in the daily Bangladesh Today:
https://thebangladeshtoday.com/?p=41002
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