Over the last two weeks, we have watched the southern Cape get hammered by climate change. File image.
Johannesburg - There are many people who still believe the world is flat, that the moon landings were faked and that sheep dip was a better bet than Covid-19 vaccines. They are entitled to their views and, if Ivermectin didn’t kill them, they can count themselves lucky.
But this same WhatsApp group of self-proclaimed experts will not have the same latitude when it comes to climate change. We are living with the consequences of an over-industrialised, coal-burning world; melting the polar caps and massively disrupting weather patterns in terms of extreme events and their frequency.
Over the last two weeks we have watched the southern Cape get hammered. Some people try to call these once-in-a-century events, but thanks to global warming it will not be 100 years before the next one.
The people of KwaZulu-Natal know all too well how extreme rainfall and violent storms are becoming the norm rather than the exception. Living inland is no guarantee either. And then there is the flipside; after the deluge will be the drought ‒ a vicious and long thirst.
It is an ominous portent, made all the worse by the knowledge that our government truly does not have the answers. Throwing good money after bad to rejuvenate the biggest coal fired power plants in the southern hemisphere which, when operational, will cement South Africa’s reputation as one of the greatest global polluters per capita is bad governance by any means, but criminal when you consider the treasure chest of renewable energy resources we sit on.
Then there is the cost of repairing infrastructure that has been washed away in municipalities that can barely keep existing roads tarred and water reticulated in ageing pipe networks.
We have to fight climate change, not just pay lip service because it will get worse ‒ and we will only have ourselves to blame.