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May 21, 2012
 
 
 
 
 
 
Columnists 11 April 2007, Wednesday 0 0 0 0
BERİL DEDEOĞLU
b.dedeoglu@todayszaman.com

The responsibility of mankind

Mankind is the most capable creature in building and destroying at the same time. He has the intelligence giving him the possibility to manipulate tools, as he has the capacity to manage nature. He demonstrates his difference from other living creatures with his ability to destroy nature itself. Civilization may have given us the possibility to elevate life expectancy to 80 years, but at the same, it has damaged the nature in which we are supposed to live.
The UN intergovernmental panel on climate change brought together an expert group at a meeting in Brussels. Over 400 participants from 190 countries worked during four days to uncover and publish astonishing findings about our future. These aren’t remotely new, because we know that there have been studies on this subject since 1988 which helped to shape the Kyoto protocol.

Currently, 19 percent of the world’s river basins present a risk of flooding, but in 2070, in other words, when today’s infants are approaching old age, this figure will be 34 percent. Millions of people will be impoverished in fertile areas, 2.5 million people will be directly influenced by flooding and 70 percent of the Alps’ glaciers will melt by 2050. Glaciers in the arctic will lose one-third of their quantity by 2100, and Antarctica will exist no longer, with the sea level rising up to 60 cm. Over 600 million people will suffer from famine in Asia. In 2020, in other words, when today’s infants will be turning 13, 1.2 billion people will face shortages of water. Millions of people will have to immigrate in search of a better life and abundant natural resources, making certain parts of the world more and more attractive. For these countries, this immigration will represent a major threat. This search for better places and the shortages of water will be the causes of the future wars and conflicts. The world is about to enter in a period of war, and this will trigger developments concerning the environment. Weapons that will be used during such wars will accelerate global warming, and this effect in itself will probably cause major disasters. There is other data concerning humanity. Island territories will diminish, and many airports, ports, agglomerations and roads will be submerged.

While the situation is that bad, the common subject is the following: Who is mostly responsible for this state of affairs? But this kind of interrogation has numerous handicaps. National egos present the fact of not taking counter-measures as a great political success as if they could avoid the environmental consequences for themselves. Some time ago, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that global warming wasn’t that bad for the Russians as they won’t be cold any longer. Despite this, he had finally to sign the Kyoto protocol. Meanwhile, the US, which is responsible for 25 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, is not willing to take precautions. The US wants every country to make the same sacrifices. The US also pretends that developing countries’ activities are more harmful to nature as their industrial efforts are not controlled at all.

 For the US, which is at war and which ceaselessly develops new defense and space technologies, this debate may appear meaningless. But for the UN panel, the main party responsible for the climate change is mankind and some people in particular. But for some American scientists, the responsible party is not humans but the sun’s explosions. That means that the experts’ reports are simply false. One can almost think that the UN panel was established solely to put the US in a difficult position

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