By Gamal Nkrumah Life is about change. Earthly processes are characterised by change. And, our world is worth saving. Climate change is just an expression of a natural process. It is a phenomenon that has been with us ever since humans started walking on two legs. So why is this natural phenomenon such a dangerous threat today? It is because people have become more aware of what is at stake. People want to change and to have control over their destiny. This is a sign of changing times. Climate change is not an alarmist hoax. Rather it is a natural process that has been with us, humanity, for millions of years. Moreover, it is a process that man has no power over. It was climate change that killed off the dinosaurs. And, I can assure you, dear reader, that the dinosaurs did not establish factories or burn copious amounts of hydrocarbons and fossil fuels that have polluted the atmosphere. The dinosaurs are extinct because of the natural environmental processes that created climatical changes. This is the view espoused by certain powers that be -- world leaders in the stature of United States President George W Bush, who has consistently refused to ratify the Kyoto Treaty or adhere to the Kyoto Protocols that aims at stabilising the greenhouse gas emmissions in the atmosphere. Be that as it may, this is no excuse for us to speed up such natural processes. We certainly do not want to join the dinosaurs in the race to oblivion. A bomb ticks away. We are running out of time. However, technology is fast changing. Technological advances infer that we have the means to arrest climate change, or at least to slow it down. Soaring oil prices, now nearing $100 a barrel augurs ill. Oil demand by China is expected to reach 3.2 per cent as opposed to world 1.8 1.8 per cent. The sad truth is that the global climate is changing, and is changing at a rate faster than anticipated. We have the means to monitor climate change. The disastrous flooding last week that blanketed Bangladesh in a swathe of waters reminiscent of the biblical flood was a sign of the times, a signal of the dangers that await many coastal areas, including the Mediterranean region. The Egyptian Nile Delta, which shares many characteristics with Bangladesh -- a country that is composed in the main of the Delta of the venerable Ganges River, is in danger of flooding if climatic change continue unabated. The Industrial Revolution changed everything, and radically so. For the first time in humanity's history, mankind started burning coal and gas and oil for energy purposes. The hunger for more and more power increases exponentially the emissions of carbon dioxide that contribute to global warming. The tragedy is that even though the industrially advanced countries of the West, especially the United States are the main pollutants, it is the poor underdeveloped countries of the South that pay the most terrible price. The impoverished and underdeveloped countries are in the greatest danger of being negatively impacted by climatic change. What is to be done? There are the emerging economies of Russia, India and China that are fast industrialising and therefore consuming ever-increasing amounts of fossil fuel. These countries, too, must learn how to cope with global warming. They cannot arrest the rate of their development simply to arrest the tide of climatic change. Nor can we, in Egypt, Africa and the Arab world, arrest our rates of development to salvage the world. The age of fossil fuels will not last forever, and other cleaner methods of generating power -- solar, wind, hydraulic and nuclear -- will surely emerge.
