On June 11, Delhi recorded all time highest temperature in the month of June, touching 48 degree Celsius; many cities in Rajasthan like Churu and Jaisalmer touched 50 plus degree Celsius during the month of June this year. In 2016, the temperature in Mitribah, Kuwait, surged a blistering 54 Celsius and in Basra, Iraq, the mercury soared to 53.9 degree Celsius. These incredible measurements represent the two hottest temperatures ever recorded in the Eastern Hemisphere.
In January this year, when some parts of USA faced a stint of extreme cold, Donald Trump sarcastically tweeted, “… Wind-chill temperature are reaching minus 60 degrees, the coldest ever recorded… what the hell is going on with global warming? Please come back fast, we need you!” This is in line with what he has previously said as well: “Global warming is a total, and very expensive, hoax… created by Chinese to make US manufacturing non competitive.” [https://time.com/5515340/trump-climate-change-weather/]
Global warming is long term rise in mean temperature of earth climate system. The record from 1880 to 2018 global mean surface temperature change testifies this trend of rise in temperature by at least 0.9 degree Celsius mainly attributed to green house gas emission and industrial economy.
In 2013, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment report concluded, “It is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century.”
Climate model projections summarised in the report indicated that during the 21st century, the global surface temperature is likely to rise a further 0.3 to 1.7 °C in a moderate scenario, or as much as 2.6 to 4.8 °C in an extreme scenario, depending on the rate of future greenhouse gas emissions and on climate feedback effects.
Impacts of global warming are many. Melting of polar cap, rise in sea level, extreme weather of heat wave and freezing cold wave, more desertification, more damaging storms, regional change in rain systems such as monsoon making a drought and flood simultaneously in neighbouring geographical areas. All these events are making headlines intermittently across the world as well as in India. The draught and flood is making news almost every year in India itself, the freezing cold wave which made Donald trump missing global warming is also a sign of the global warming and climate change. The melting of polar ice cap and depletion of Aral Sea to its 40% can be seen with naked eyes and have been recorded over decades.
The main reason for this may be attributed to greenhouse gases (such as carbon dioxide, nitrogen emission, etc.), or deforestation; but real reason that fuels this extravagant corruption is CAPITALISM. This is also the very reason why Capitalists are trying their best to portray global warming a ‘fake news’ or ‘urban conspiracy theory’ so that their industrial production remain uninterrupted. This sentiment was very clearly expressed by the American president when he said, “The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive”, a clear case of diverting the issue to a non-issue.
Capitalism is an ideology that has been running the global world order since the early 18th century and while every good is attributed to it, all the bad of this world must also be attributed to this ideology as well. Capitalism has taken the world to hostage to the extent of its existential crisis. A UN body Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that has some 90 climate scientists from 40 countries concludes that if humans don’t take immediate, collective action to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2040, the consequences will effectively be baked into the natural systems of the planet. With so much heat-trapping carbon in the atmosphere, there will be, in effect, no turning back. In other words “we have just 20 years to limit devastating global warming”.
The idea of this ideology is based on PROFIT BEING HIGHEST SACRED OBJECTIVE, and CARE for others and the world are moral issues which capitalism believes useless and redundant concepts. This Ideological gas in absence of morality and care for others makes a fatal petrol mix that powers maximisation of profit at any cost. No wonder millions of people are dying because of industrial pollution, many species are facing extinction due to contamination in flora and fauna, ecology of sea creatures and forests is disturbed, etc. Thus industrial waste is not treated as it would cost money so it is drained largely untreated in rivers across the world. The plastic waste is well-known to be not degradable but it remains to be backbone of packaging industry, soft drinks and packaged water causing multiple species of sea to be extinct. Deforestation for the sake of paper industry, real state, and human activities that have alternative is used without check to end the forest cover by significant percentage.
This phenomenon is already mentioned in the Quran when Allah the Exalted says:
“Corruption has appeared throughout the land and sea by [reason of] what the hands of people have earned so He may let them taste part of [the consequence of] what they have done that perhaps they will return [to righteousness].” Al Quran: Sure Rum: 41
What is happening to our world is verbatim description in the noble ayah. The Corruption due to profit maximisation has been done by humans in land and sea and thus we are TASTING the consequences in the form of flood, draught, storm, pollution and others, to name a few. The message in this ayah also mentions SOLUTION to Global warming, climate change as well as environmental pollution, which is to RETURN to righteousness i.e. Islam. Islam does not believe in profit maximisation by maximising production for few capitalists to become richer than some countries, but Islam focuses on distribution of resources to make sure every individual gets the basic need: i.e. food, shelter and clothes, thus keeping the gap between rich and poor at reasonable level.
Islam has a judicial system for checking the collective issues of community such as environment, water bodies, forests, pollution, flora and fauna and anyone causing harm to its physical, moral or social structure shall be liable for strict punishment. The political system in Islam is service for earning pleasure of Allah the Exalted and not being clandestine partners of capitalists to make rules in favour of their cronies’ businesses and getting electoral funds in return.
In conclusion, Islam is solution for all our problems, including the environmental issues such as Global Warming and Climate change. A judicious approach to industrial production, strong regulation for industrial waste, focus on renewable sources of energy instead of polluting thermal power plants, along with moral compass to take care of seas, rivers, mountains, animals, birds, fellow beings can usher us to a green era where Global Warming could be a thing of the past.