A number of reports have been released spelling out the world's doomsday: what's happening to our planet and the likely scenarios if nothing is done about this notorious thing that is climate change.
The latest report, released Nov. 17 in Valencia, Spain, by the co-Nobel laureate Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, similarly raised warnings of global warming and its impacts across the continents, on land, sea and air.
The report says the surging emissions of greenhouse gases will relentlessly warm the earth's atmosphere, cutting away at ice and snow cover and causing the oceans to rise and expand -- damage which could be ""abrupt"" and ""irreversible"".
In such a scenario, mankind would face wide-ranging misery in the form of crop failure, storm damage and sickness as drought, floods, cyclones, mosquitoes and waterborne disease become more frequent or intensive.
But the morsel of good news from the pages and pages of findings was that mitigation efforts in the next few decades could eventually reduce the odds of such scenarios becoming reality.
Former U.S. vice president and presidential candidate Al Gore brought the message to the masses and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts alongside the international experts. Though this puzzled many, the Nobel Prize committee may have simply been pointing out that if billions could be made aware of what was happening on earth, they might realize sooner than later there is no point in fighting over land, religion or whatever if even clean water or the air we breathe becomes increasingly scarce.
Signs of popular awareness are visible in the latest trend of political conscience. Beyond individual decisions against wearing fur, avoiding plastic, buying furniture from depleted tropical forests and clothes involving child workers, there is the new fad of counting your emissions and finding ways to offset them.
It's harder than counting calories -- try figuring out how to offset your air travel that uses inevitably harmful pollutants. But an awareness, at least, seems to be catching up nevertheless in the countries where people may be eager to shed a bit of guilt over their non-environmentally friendly habits.
It is indeed the developed countries that are obliged by the 1997 Kyoto Protocol to do the most. Faced with the prospect of being forced to significantly curb their emissions, the U.S. and Australia refused to ratify the agreement, citing fears that doing so would harm their economies.
Now all eyes are on these rich nations ahead of the upcoming Bali conference on climate change, which aims to hammer out plans for a deal to replace the soon-expiring Protocol. Will they or won't they concede more?
Our government knows full well where to point the blame, and in playing the game to its fullest it shamelessly blackmails rich countries into giving us the necessary funding to prevent further environmental degradation. Many people would indeed agree poorer nations can't be left to fend for themselves in coming up with clean technologies and healthy forests. This is a task for the richer nations, which, the reports say, have acquired greater responsibility by way of their disproportionate consumption of energy and resources.
But when our officials reach for the language of thugs -- ""We'll just have to continue to exploit our forests if you don't give us the money"" -- citizens cringe.
Officials no less than Vice President Kalla and Forestry Minister Malam Sambat Kaban have expressed such sentiments, and a few weeks ahead of the Bali conference it remains unclear what precisely Indonesia will place on the table apart from this demand.
Even before all the discourse on climate change, it was clear corruption was eating up our forests despite rules on concessions and reforestation. In other words, Indonesia is partly responsible for damaging its own heritage, which happens to make up a large part, the experts say, of the world's lungs.
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