The havoc caused by the heavy rains in the wake of, and in accompaniment of, Hurricane Harvey has brought America, the world’s most powerful nation, to its knees. The incredible sight of Houston, America’s fourth largest city, submerged in deep waters makes you wonder how helpless man is against the wrath of nature. But it has to be said, the culprit is man himself. So far, the poor nations of the world bore the brunt of the sins of the advanced countries. Most of the world’s disasters like the mudslides, floods and earthquakes happened in poorer countries in Africa and Asia.
Now it is the turn of the advanced country like the US. More rain and flooding are forecast and the devastation is expected to continue till mid September when Harvey makes second landfall - the hurricane’s last punch. These tsunamis, mudslides and floods are Mother Nature’s cry for help in retaliation to the flogging we humans subject her to.
I would like to reiterate here what I have said before in this column – stop belching out poisonous gases in the atmosphere or else our posterity will have no earth to live on. So what could be done to prevent such disasters from happening again? It is time for governments to do more to protect the environment. This could be achieved by reducing global warming and conserving ecological balance by avoiding the depletion of natural resources like trees and forests – by creating sustainability.
Dinesh Sheth
Newbury Park, Ilford
