Earth Day 2020: “Climate Action”

Every year on the 22^nd of April Earth Day is observed worldwide. In Pakistan also environmental protection organisations and agencies observe this day. The theme of this year’s day is Climate Action. Due to coronavirus lockdowns across the world, this day is being observed virtually in cyberspace.

Climate change represents the biggest challenge to the future of humanity and the life-support systems that make our world habitable.

At the end of 2020, nations will be expected to increase their national commitments to the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change. The time is now for citizens to call for greater global ambition to tackle our climate crisis. Unless every country in the world steps up – and steps up with urgency and ambition — we are consigning current and future generations to a dangerous future.

The world’s largest civic event is going digital for the first time in its history. The organisers will demand that leaders take science seriously, listen to their people and push for action at every level of society to stop the rising tide of climate change.

“We can make a better world for everyone. Tell everyone you know about April 22 and join us at earthday.org as we flood the world with messages of hope, optimism and, above all — action,” stated a message on the online website www.earthday.org/earth-day-live.

On April 22, 1970, over 20 million Americans (about 10% of the U.S. population at the time) took to the streets, college campuses and hundreds of cities to protest environmental ignorance and demand a new way forward for our planet. The first Earth Day is credited with launching the modern environmental movement and is now recognized as the planet’s most significant civic event.

The first Earth Day in 1970 launched a wave of action, including the passage of landmark environmental laws in the United States. The Clean Air, Clean Water and Endangered Species Acts were created in response to the first Earth Day in 1970, as well as the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Many countries soon adopted similar laws.

Earth Day continues to hold major international significance: In 2016, the United Nations chose Earth Day as the day when the historic Paris Agreement on climate change was signed into force.

On Earth Day 2020, we seize all the tools and actions that we have, big and small, to change our lives and change our world, not for one day, but forever.

While the coronavirus may force us to keep our distance, it will not force us to keep our voices down. The only thing that will change the world is a bold and unified demand for a new way forward.

We may be apart, but through the power of digital media, we’re also more connected than ever.

On April 22, join for 24 hours of action in a global digital mobilization that drives actions big and small, gives diverse voices a platform and demands bold action for people and the planet.

Over the 24 hours of Earth Day, the 50th anniversary of Earth Day will fill the digital landscape with global conversations, calls to action, performances, video teach-ins and more.

While Earth Day may be going digital, our goal remains the same: to mobilize the world to take the most meaningful actions to make a difference.

No matter where you are, you can make a difference. And you’re not alone, because together, we can save the Earth.

Visit www.earthday.org on April 22 as we build an Earth Day unlike any other — We’re flooding the digital landscape with live-streamed discussions, a global digital surge, and 24 hours of actions that you can take, right now and from wherever you are.

Earth Day 2020 will be far more than a day. It must be a historical moment when citizens of the world rise up in a united call for the creativity, innovation, ambition, and bravery that we need to meet our climate crisis and seize the enormous opportunities of a zero-carbon future.

Deaths due to mysterious gas leakage in Keamari port area

At least six persons died and dozens were seriously got an illness and admitted to two major hospitals in the port area of Keamari – Kutiyana and Ziauddin — early in the morning on Monday, media reports said.

The mysterious poisonous and deadly gas is suspected to have come out from a chemical storage warehouse in the Keamari area. The authorities have kept mum on the cause of the release.

“Port authorities are trying to hide the facts,” said Faisal Edhi, head of Edhi Foundation, the top ambulance service in the country in a video shared by media. “They should tell the truth so further deaths and damage be prevented,” Edhi added.

Watch wideo by clicking herehttps://youtu.be/T7Bn9GS-prQ

According to police, most of the affected people have become unconscious after inhaling toxic gas and many others are facing difficulties in inhaling.  

It is a very serious matter and criminal neglect on part of the authorities as they have failed to prevent the release of deadly and toxic gas in the congested port area. They are now trying to hide the fact to save their skins.

The police and port authorities should locate the place from where the gas was released and all the responsible persons or departments be taken to task. Besides Police, the Karachi Port Authority, Federal Government’s Ports and Shipping Department, Pakistan Navy, Environment Protection Authority (EPA), KMC (City Government) and the Civil Defence departments should be asked to play their roles. Not only the culprits be nabbed, but the government should take preventive measures so a similar incident has not happened in future.

TharCoal Block-1: Plight of Warwai Villagers

The villagers of a well-developed but now under threat to demolish village Warvai near Islamkot town in the Tharparkar district of Sindh are spending restless nights these days as the government and a Chinese company’s high-ups have ordered them to vacate their centuries-old village because is now part of the Block-I of Thar Coal-cum-Power generation project.

Considered a model village in the desert area, Warvai is an oasis of human settlement where over 500 houses of different types (made from mud, cement and thatches) are located along with all other facilities like electricity, RO plant for water supply, a number of wells, 3 government schools including a separate for girls, a government medical facility and a number of mosques and temples.

But now 2200 people of the village are worried about their future as they have to leave their homeland because it would be part of the coal mining pit, which would produce 6.5 Metric tons of lignite coal annually (Mpta) which would then generate 1320 MW of electricity. The coal mining activity would last for the next 30 years.

Allocated to Sino-Sindh Resources Limited (SSRL), a China-owned company with some local private sector partners under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which is a portion of the Belt and Road Initiative linking China with the Middle East and Europe, the Block-1 of Thar coalfield is expected to be fully operational within two years.

Work on this block has started and was in full swing as the mining area is entirely fenced and security is tightened. Only company vehicles can enter the highly guarded area.

At least four villages with a population will have to be resettled and Warwai is bigger of all of them.

“First they asked us to leave the village without paying any compensation, but when we protested, they presented two options to us: take money as compensation for homes or move to the homes, which the company would build,” said Noor Mohammad Rahimo, an elder of the village Warwai.

Village elders were divided into two groups on this offer — one group was in favour of receiving money, whereas another group was preferring to receive built houses from the company.

“Now we have decided that we would receive money as compensation,” Rahimo told a group of civil society and human rights activists who visited the village on January 25, 2020.

“We have other demands as well,” said Rahimo adding that priority in jobs be given to our youth and the company should provide us substitute for our 5000 acres ‘Gauchar’ — collective land for grazing of animals. In Thar, rearing cattle, especially camels, cows, buffaloes and goats is the main source of livelihood as agriculture solely depends on Monsoon rains, which are scant and often droughts emerge after two or three years. Traditionally, a big portion of the land is reserved for grazing animals and this land is a collective property of the entire village.

The villagers say every house is offered the same amount of compensation, but all homes are the same, some are concrete-built Pucca houses and most are Katcha houses in this village. This village has a mixed population as many are Muslims, but half of the population is Hindus. There are three schools in the village including one for girls and a middle school, religious Madressahs and shops in the village as well.

The villagers are an environment-loving community. They claim to have hundreds of thousands of trees in the village and Gauchar area, which they have protected like their children and no one is allowed to cut even branches of these trees. Thousands of peacocks are also living in and around the village and these birds are protected by the villagers. “No one is allowed to kill or catch peacocks, even though we don’t allow government or military men to hunt or kill these birds,” claimed a villager proudly.

All the natural assets of the area are also facing threats along with the human population due to the coal development. Villagers say they are reluctantly receiving compensation money because they are helpless and don’t have any other options.

But so far the company is not ready to further negotiate with the villagers and it has even withheld the money, which it was earlier offered to the villagers as compensation money. “We have forcibly stopped their work in our area,” claimed Rahimi. But the villagers also fear any police action against them as they said earlier police, Rangers and even Army used to threaten them of dire consequences if they resisted. Rangers had earlier established a check-post outside the village.

But villagers are sure they have to leave their homes anytime this year. But their bargaining position is quite weaker. So far many of the villagers have purchased lands for their homes in different areas in the Thar desert on deferred payment terms and they say would pay back when compensation would be received.

Villagers are desperately looking for a miracle to happen so they are not forced to leave their ancestral homes.

Listen to Noor Mohammad Rahomo, explaining the plight of villagers: 

Click Here to watch video