At the beginning of every year i always lament about how drastically the climate is changing and how terrifying it is to imagine increasing summer months with increasing temperature. Edhapathi thaan nee polambama irunthirukka idhu pathi sollama irukkanulaam kekkapdaathu. Last year, around early Feb itself it began to sweat and we had to resort to air conditioners from the second month of the year itself. With the heat wave, agni natchathiram, increasing its span from the designated 20 odd days to months together, coupled with ever increasing slab rates for electricity consumption, people are not just caught between a rock and hard place, but a very hot rock at that as well. Every year, the number of months of summer, heat rather, has been on the increase with the supposedly cooler months on the reduce, but the cooler temperature are now moving towards colder temperature. The supposedly monsoon months have reduced in duration while the volume of rain has more or less remained the same, most of which is attributed to cloud bursts or short bursts of rain, as against a spread out window. This time we actually used an AQI app to measure our inhouse temperature as against the external and could see that at the lowest it was 21 degrees! And with in couple of weeks into January we are already hitting 29!!! Whenever i mention about this drastic change at home and how much it is going to shoot up the EB bill, my mom always says, we are all living under the same sky and over the same earth. No point in blaming the weather. Wiser words and true as well for we can't control what we can't. But adapting to such drastically changing scenario is a must and unavoidable. She comes from the thought process that we have been using A/C's for last couple of years and during my childhood even having one running fan was a luxury. I am all for being grateful but also mindful of the fact that, even though it might've gone up by a couple of degrees numerically, the impact of heat is well and true, with even the otherwise dumb governments declaring holidays fearing heat waves and extending summer holidays well into June.
As a society we crib over pollution due to bursting crackers during diwali, plying private vehicles which are not just gas guzzlers but spew leaded smoke. But conveniently ignore the number of wars that is ongoing across almost every country in the world at present, number of flights that have been ever on the rise and numerous other ways in which we are messing up our delicate climate setup. I used to fear about the future place that we would be leaving to our kids, but the rate at which things are escalating, it makes me fear the present itself! Ivlo pesariye nee enna panna idukelam nu ketta, i don't know. If someone can tell what needs to be done, more than happy to follow. But 2026, as we speak, is already heating up and in all probability going to be a record year weather wise!
Comments