Climate change

While the stage is being set for the climate talks in Glasgow, Greenland is melting and is continuing to melt and these articles appear in the same breath or rather, almost consecutively (“Changing snowfall making Greenland darker and warmer: Study,” Gulf Today, May 18).

The world leaders won’t be satisfied until they have sufficiently destroyed and sufficiently filled their pockets. While climate change has been in the spotlight more often and with more urgency in the last handful of years thanks largely to the scientists and the media, the policymakers have chosen to stay quiet and do nothing about it. In fact doing nothing might have been better than doing detrimental things such as encouraging coal usage, excavation and transport.

“According to research cited in the study, the Greenland ice sheet has warmed about 2.7 degrees Celsius (4.85 degrees Fahrenheit) since 1982, and the continent is experiencing its greatest melt and runoff rates in at least the last 450 years.” The data is scary and surely life-threatening — if only the leaders would take it seriously.

And this isn’t about borders. While Greenland has very little pollution to attribute to the dark snow, the surrounding countries and the world has enough pollution to combat Greenland’s little pollution. The effects of climate change do not mind borders.

They escalate over the geography. And therefore it is imperative for all the world to join hands with strong policies. Australia and India should stop the coal rendezvous. Brazil should stop the Amazon destruction. The UK and USA must propagate clean energy. We can save the planet — in unity. But that’s just a dream.

These systems, which have become more prevalent in the region since the 1990s, hold warmer air over western Greenland, reduce light-blocking cloud cover, and push snowstorms to the north.

The result is a “triple whammy,” said Osterberg. “This all contributes to Greenland melting faster and faster.”

Ashish Tevari
By email