After one day’s respite of rain last Saturday, the heat resumed and the atmosphere lost its cool again. And bet you like to live with the Eskimos, now that everyone is sweating like a greased monkey. There is nowhere to escape to now that everywhere is hot. Well, except for the water-filled bathtub that the young man in the social media posting seems to have ingeniously devised to catch some cool.
If you really want to feel the heat in Lagos, stand at the intersection where Alhaji Masha Street runs into Western Avenue between 1pm and 2pm. You will feel the heat emitting from the concrete on all sides; the Teslim Balogun and the dilapidated National stadiums, the flyover, houses, tarred road and the fume from the jalopies that pass for commuter buses, commercial tricycles and taxi cabs that ply the road.
The heat seems to stay just below the skin, causing aches and pains to the bones and muscles. Bolanle Boluwole agrees: “The weather is inclement; the searing heat walloping everyone. It is impossible to sleep at night, day time is no better. The depletion of the ozone layer has brought about this terrible climactic change-and the situation will progressively get worse if the superpowers fail to agree on drastic measures to save the ozone layer.”
When you turn on the air conditioner in your car, it feels like the ducts are puffing hot air into your body or face. The fans at home are also circulating hot air. You can’t always use the air conditioner at home because the power companies won’t supply electricity and most domestic electricity generators can’t power the air conditioners.
The dismal performance of the electricity distributing companies is fast diminishing the can-do mystique of the Minister for Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola. Some ‘wicked’ people actually suggest that his enemies contrived to get him this job so that he could fail woefully and slide into oblivion when President Muhammadu Buhari finally delists his name from the directory of ministers. But Fashola’s admirers think he will redeem time and shame those bad people.
Many Nigerians feel terribly sick because of the heat and doctors advise people to stay indoors, as much as possible, to avoid succumbing to heat stroke. Sun or heat stroke is a condition of excessively high temperature that causes the failure of the mechanism which then leads to fever and unconsciousness. Medical personnel advise Nigerians to wear light fabrics that won’t trap the heat, use their telephones or internet facilities as much as possible and go out only when absolutely necessary.
A geography student in a Nigerian university corroborates the fact that excessive heat causes some kinds of fever. Malaria fever thrives in hot and humid regions of the world. The increase in heat allows mosquitos to thrive and put people at risk of sickness and death.
An American Embassy study reveals that about 100 million cases of malaria fever result in about 3,000 deaths in Nigeria every year. Also, Ondo State Commissioner for Health, Dr. Dayo Adeyanju, says the average Nigerian suffers about four bouts of malaria every year.
Alero Binitie reports: “Experts have blamed the recent rise in infectious diseases on climate change.” And she quotes Minister of State for the Environment, Usman Jubril, as having said: “Rising global temperatures would have catastrophic effect on human health and patterns of infection would change, with insect-borne diseases, such as malaria and dengue fever, spreading more easily.”
She reports also that the World Health Organisation thinks that severe drought, flooding, heavy rains and temperature rises can lead to food insecurity and malnutrition, outbreak of diseases, acute water shortages and disruption of health services.” Yes, you can go ahead and say, “God no go ‘gree make this heat kill us o!”
The PUNCH columnist, Greg Odogwu, introduced a very serious dimension to a very serious problem: “Northern Nigerians are experiencing intense climatic shifts of climate change, which is forcing agriculturalists and pastoralists alike to adapt to their lifestyles…. Farmers are seeing severe declines in their crop yield. Fulani herdsmen, who depend on the wet season to sustain their herds, are losing cattle to starvation and dehydration.”
An effort to negotiate the global climate change treaty in Copenhagen, Sweden, in 2009 floundered and the 2015 effort in Paris, France, was a harvest of squabbles; nothing concrete came out of it. So the world remains on heat, literarily, because of uncontrolled carbon emissions generated by major air polluters, such as the United States of America, China, Germany and India. Even the European Union is backing away from some environmental issues.
Bolumole reports: “The much-needed agreement is nowhere in sight as (the climate change culprit) industrial giants are nether ready to take their foot off the pedal of massive energy consumption… nor adopt costly safety measures that will better protect the environment.”
So you are feeling the heat because some ‘environmental sinners’ have refused to repent. Jubril, however, reveals that the Federal Government has set up the Great Green Wall initiative to combat desert encroachment in northern Nigeria, in addition to measures taken to control erosion and coastal surges in the south.
Jubril advises Nigerians to emulate the Lagos State Government and plant trees. Chairman and Managing Director, Alhaji Babatunde Jose, had used the Daily Times of Nigeria newspaper platform to run a successful campaign to fight the desertification of Northern Nigeria sometime in the 1970s. But the problem is creeping back again.
In 2015, the annual average concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere rose above 400 parts per million. Although The Economist news magazine observes that “global surface temperature has not risen much for (about one) decade, the risks of severe and irreversible damage from greenhouse gas emissions are growing.”
Third World countries, those that love the fancy nomenclature, ‘emerging economies,’ are fast adopting the fossil oil-driven technologies that make the ozone layer recede, all in the name of industrialisation. They fell trees and hurt the earth with careless abandon. Despite the injunction by Mohamed, the Islamic prophet, “Don’t cut trees,” loggers have appreciably depleted the Amazon forest of South America. And the African rain forest is more in name than in reality.
But reports indicate that some do-gooder venture capitalists may have invested more than $100 billion to encourage companies that are interested in adopting environmentally friendly technology. Although the Senate chamber of America’s Congress is recalcitrant and reluctant, President Barack Obama is taking steps to abide by climate treaties, at least as far as it concerns the United Nations Law of the Sea Convention.
China, which earlier argued that America and the rest of the West cannot be pointing accusing fingers at anyone, now appears to be willing to abide by certain conditions, but without signing any treaty. India, whose leader suspended and froze the bank account of Greenpeace India, is not a likely friend of the earth.
Apart from posting the temperature and humidity levels on its website, the Nigerian Meteorological Service is not sending alerts or advice to Nigerians about the weather. Don’t its operatives also feel the oppressive heat? Or has it come to accepting that an atmosphere that feels like Dante’s Inferno is okay?
PUNCH
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