Unexplained Seasonal Change

The winters in Kolkata are decreasing fast. Both in their intensity and their length. Conventionally, winter in West Bengal is from December to February with strong chilly weather persisting till January. This year, winter could barely stay till the first week of January. But the second week, the sun was out in full intensity and people had ditched their sweaters and jackets for warmer alternatives.
I was quite surprised by this. My son being born in January; I am accustomed to his birthday being celebrated in the chilly season. All his birthday pictures are in jackets and sweaters! But over the last few years, I have personally noticed a decline in the stay of winter. Normally we would be preparing for winter by November and even the Durga Puja was marked by drizzles and cool weather. But now? People have to go out in the sweltering heat and humidity to see the pandals. December comes but winter does not. Only in the second week of December do we see the temperature dropping. Last three years, winter lasted only from December to January. Often, the temperatures begin rising by say 5th or 7th of January, and people are fooled into thinking winter is leaving. But no, by the 12th, temperatures start dropping again and even faster this time. This week of 12th to 19th of January by tradition records the lowest temperatures of the entire season. This year, the temperatures did drop on the 12th, but it was a pale imitation of yesteryears.

All of this made me very curious. I talked to my friend in IIT Bombay extensively about this. I reached out on Twitter. What was going on?
The answer most probably is Global Warming.
The Sundarbans are disappearing. Temperatures all over the world are rising. Even beyond that, due to temperature changes, the movement of winds all over the world is shifting directions. Places are getting wildly different weathers now and, in all probability, climates of some places are changing irreversibly. All of this has happened before. Climate and wind directions have regularly changed over time. It is what terraformed Earth into what it is. So, what’s different this time? It is the intensity and speed. If a single generation can visualise the change in temperatures and rainfall which are meant to happen over centuries, things are seriously wrong.
Think about it. Ask your grandparents, your parents. The childhood weather they describe will be very different from the one you are witnessing right now. It is either way too hot now or way too cold. Droughts are happening in much more frequency. Farmers are facing the brunt of this. Rainfall in West Bengal has become very erratic, far more than before. The British were largely responsible for the terrible economic ruin of the Great Bengal Famine of 1770. But now? We have irrigation, we can even cut and make new rivers? Why are farmers still being so utterly ruined by droughts? The truth is that rain is an essential component of agriculture. It still remains the major water source by far for irrigation. And if there is no food, there is no human. There are no two ways about this. To live, we must save the planet first.

I am telling you this because far too often Climate Change takes on a very “Help us” tone and we are requested to care about it. Let me be clear to you. Nature does not care for our compassion. It is far more brute beast and like we cut rivers, it will just plow its way through us. The truth is that we don’t have much time. Barely any at all. The actions of climate change will be permanently irreversible in 9 years. We just have 9 years to fix millenniums worth of damage.
How do we fix this? You would think of conventional answers like using less plastic, saving water, and so on. Well, yes but honestly no. The brunt of the damage to the environment is done by big corporations. Levi’s, while making its pretty jeans, wastes thousands of tons of water washing and dying them. This water is not properly disposed of, whatever anyone says. The water used to cool parts of machines in factories is directly poured into surrounding water bodies. Lakes and pools are permanently destroyed, and marine life is shredded by thousands. There are thousands of examples of the ecological damage by big industries but what you need to know is this. There are not proper green standards for the goods we use. Governments need to enforce them. Corporations need to obey. That is the only way we will survive. Corporations do this thing where they guilt trip you into being environmentally conscious. They ask you to buy more expensive “greener” products and they put the onus on you to save the planet by spending money. This whole thing is a sham. What we need are better standards that are also strictly enforced. It is not just enough for a company to be “zero-carbon” for just a financial year. They need to save enough carbon (be enough “carbon positive”) to make up for the thousands of years of damage. And this does not involve making prices go higher. Most of the labour for such companies is financed by outsourcing most of the labour to third-world countries without proper employment standards. The onus is absolutely on the big companies. Not on us.

So remember this when winter comes. And hopefully next year we can break out the old monkey tupis and feel the chill like we used to.