Facing the Heat!

Things have changed so fast in the past two decades or so that while summer just doesn’t know when to leave, winter is also getting absolutely exhausted from waiting in the wings. Year after year, the same agonising routine occurs: September arrives, but summer refuses to pack its sweaty, uninvited encore well into October; instead, it insists on dragging out its sweaty, uninvited encore into October, and sometimes even into November. Way back in 1819, an English Romantic poet named Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote a poem titled “Ode to the West Wind”, which he concluded with a line – a poem titled “Ode to the West Wind”, which he concluded with a line – “If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?” While the poet had addressed the fierce West Wind (of Europe) as both a destroyer and a preserver, it was also generally agreed that winter (in Europe) represented hardship, decay, and difficult phases of life, while spring symbolised hope, renewal and rebirth. But with summer now threatening to wipe out all other seasons, the modern-day poet probably will have to rephrase Shelley’s 200-year-old poem and ask, “If summer comes, can winter be far behind?” In Europe, there are typically four seasons, while India had six seasons until a few years ago. But with the unwelcome extension of summer, the other five seasons are already on the verge of extinction. It’s important to note that while winter offers crisp nights, cosy layers, and fashionable coats and other woollens, the extended summer insists on subjecting the world to high humidity, coupled with swarms of aggressive mosquitoes. Additionally, unpredictable heavy rains have rendered urban planning—especially drainage—an outdated, if not obsolete, subject. The people of Assam, and for that matter India, are happy that they are not alone in facing the heat generated by these two phenomena called climate change and global warming. This optimism has arisen from the fact that people nowadays learn that global leaders often meet inside heavily air-conditioned venues in big cities to discuss climate change and global warming. And, even as they continue with this exercise, some climate scientists have recently uncovered a shocking, radical piece of data called trees. Apparently, these large, leafy sticks can absorb carbon dioxide, and that too for free. Naturally, world leaders and tech billionaires are completely horrified by this discovery, as planting a tree does not require a subscription model, a venture capital funding round, or a proprietary AI algorithm. The only ray of hope for them is that the tree plantation drive continues to be a half-hearted campaign!