Quamrul Haider

A patient on ventilatory support was removed from the ICU of a private hospital in Dhaka when it was found that he was Covid-19 positive.

Though much of the world is focused on transitioning away from fossil fuels as a way to fight climate change, there are other often overlooked contributors to the conundrum resulting from climate change.

In an opinion piece published in this newspaper on April 22, 2020, I discussed the future of our planet within the context of frontier ethics.

No one witnessed the birth of Earth. The Earth does not have a birth certificate to authenticate its age.

In a book on influenza published last year, Robert G. Webster, a virologist at Otago University in New Zealand, had a terrifyingly prescient chapter about pandemics.

If you live in Dhaka, a city that is perennially drowned in a sea of polluted air, you may think that a scarlet sunrise or sunset blazing across the horizon is a sight to behold.

For millions of years, we have remained in equilibrium with our environment. In fact, a defining characteristic of the last 11,500 years, a period in Earth’s history called the Holocene Epoch, has been global climate stability, with average surface temperature fluctuating plus or minus one degree Celsius.

After his death in 1896, the will of Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor of dynamite, established the Nobel Prize in the fields of Physics, Chemistry, Medicine, Literature and Peace.

The Doomsday Clock was created in 1947 by the Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists at the University of Chicago. Original members of the Board were a group of scientists who worked under the auspices of the Manhattan Project, the secret scheme responsible for developing the first nuclear weapons.

Ever since global warming became a hot button issue, our leaders have told us umpteen times that “climate change is the greatest environmental threat and the biggest challenge humanity has ever faced.” Yet, they are not “bold enough to do enough” to pull us out of the climate change conundrum soon enough.

This year, all the precursor conditions—chilly nights and sunny, warm days—were in place for a fabulous fall foliage season.

In America’s Northeast, including New York, the dramatic explosion of colour during fall season starts typically in late September. It peaks in mid-October when leaves on the trees are emblazoned in gorgeous shades of red, orange, yellow and gold.

Known for its overwhelming natural beauty and incredible ice formations, Alaska, the largest state (in area) of the United States is home to a multitude of geological wonders.

Alaska may not fit the bill for what most people envision as a vacation, but it has been on my family’s bucket list for a long time.

In an op-ed piece published in this newspaper on August 27, 2019, I discussed a number of methods within the context of Solar Radiation Management (SRM) as a way of mitigating some of the impacts of climate change. They are whitening low-level clouds, thinning the Cirrus clouds, injecting sulphate aerosols into the stratosphere, or putting sunshades (mirrors and/or reflectors) in outer space.

In the Environmental Physics course that I teach from time to time, a student once remarked that we really do not have to worry about the deleterious effects of climate change because technology would be able to solve all the problems we are facing.

Since the Industrial Revolution, we have created a hodgepodge of human systems that are at odds with natural systems that support them. In the process, we are pushing billions of people into a dystopian future by bequeathing them with a climate crisis.

Nick-Named the “Last Frontier”, Alaska is the largest state (in area) of the United States. It is also one of the richest states, thanks to its abundance of natural resources, such as oil, natural gas, gold and fish. The state is home to a vast expanse of pristine wilderness, towering mountains, breathtaking glaciers and big game animals.

The picture is crystal clear. Human activity will soon drive the climate crisis all across our planet to the tipping point unless we rapidly transform the ways in which we produce and consume energy. While renewable energy technologies and energy efficiency measures can help dramatically cut emissions of greenhouse gases, they are not the panacea for the climate change related problems that we have created.

Today is “World Oceans Day,” a day observed worldwide to raise our awareness of the crucial role the oceans play in sustaining life on Earth. It is also a day to appreciate the beauty of the oceans that “brings eternal joy to the soul.”