First person to scale the highest peak in the world, Sir Edmund Hillary, also worried for the threat that global warming poses to Mt Everest and other mountain peaks, glaciers, icebergs and natural skycaps. Why not, the changes that he saw from 1953 to-date can set anyone shivering. But, who cares?
The picture of Mt Everest is drastically dissimilar to what Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay could have ever imagined when they became the first conquerors of the world’s highest peak. Global warming has had its adverse impact on the highest peak of the Himalayan ranges. It is fast turning it into a shattered landscape, contrary to what all of us can even imagine. But its happening, and happening fast – eroding the summit and melting the towering glaciers that are said to adorn it, threatening the underlying areas of submergence. Sea Swell could be another drastic result.
The melting glaciers owing to global warming seem to be crying for help from man-the creator and destroyer of one of the most magnificent picturesque features on earth. But in his caravan of development, man forgot to take care of the vast natural features that God bestowed on him. He has been ransacking the environment for his selfish needs. Even Edmund Hillary must have apologized in his heart sometime for having started the journey to the mountain peaks, as lakhs have scaled different peaks after him, camping on the summit, dumping piles of rubbish – estimated to be around 200 tonnes. In all this, the climbers have unintentionally made it a garbage bin risking the native population.
The melting glaciers are soon turning into streams owing to the sumptuous amount of gases pumped into the environment. Deforestation and large-scale industrialization is further dumping the atmosphere toward a life equivalent to death. Such a drastic change in environment means climate is changing fast-faster than the supersonic crafts, only to throw this beautiful earth and its features to the bin.
Are we ready to live a life of death? Are we ready to dump our atmosphere in the bin and with that our lives? Let’s begin thinking of the tragedy ready to befall us and prepare ourselves. Lets do it now or else time won’t wait for us. No riches will help us either. Are we really ready?
Source: The Independent