Barack Obama once said: We are the nation that feels the effects of these environmental changes & probably the last nation that can do something about it.
The story starts from the loss of 18 lives at Mingora bypass a month ago ,,,, this was really the start of the story; followed by the present dreadful urban & rural flooding taking hundreds of lives
I would like to state a few statistics before I go further ,,,,
1- Pakistan has the largest pool of 7000 glaciers after the polar region in the world, which are melting at a speed of light due to increasing temperature, G-LOF ( Glacial Lake Outburst Flood ) & unbelievably high deforestation
2- Only 3 years back in 2022, the flood left behind 1800 people dead, 13000 injured, 2 Million People homeless & overall 33 million people affected ( almost 12 % of the total population )
3- Vector-borne diseases like heat stroke, malaria, dengue, filth pollution, and air pollution take 128000 lives every year in Pakistan
4- The Rural-Urban Population Shift of Pakistan is the highest in the entire Asia ( 3 % ), leading to poor urbanization, diffusion of different cultures & putting extra pressure on the infrastructures of Mega Cities, like Karachi, Lahore, Faisalabad & Rawalpindi, etc.
5- Only over the last 12 years, more than 200 hectares of Mangrove trees ( mangrove is a tree that absorbs water & flood ) have been wiped off only in Karachi by land grabbers, announcing illegal housing colonies
5- As per evidence-based statistics of the World Bank, there will be 2 million annual displacements of people due to environmental changes
6- By 2050, there is an estimated temperature rise of 1.3 °c to 4.9°c; that will simply lead to glacial melts, undue torrential rains out of the season & Pakistan will lose its 40 % crops
7- The factor no 6 will lead to massive urban flooding & loss of major infrastructure of every major city, poverty, crime hike, etc.
These are a few eye-opening facts that these floods & aftermaths are man-orchestrated & can be avoided, but how
1- It will need visionary governments, focused straight on catching the tide of these environmental upheavals
2- It will need extra funds to spend on formulating emergency teams & machinery & infrastructure
3- There is no community drilling at present in Pakistan, so it will need a comprehensive & persistent awareness of the masses, not to build illegal riverbed hotels, not to cut trees for personal interest.
We will have to take the example of Japan, where such trainings start from early school life that teaching how to manage an earthquake or a tsunami
4- Almost more than 1200 drainage nullahs have been replaced by an illegal horizontal flat system at Karachi & it will surely wipe off Karachi by 2050 under uncontrolled flooding & it will have to be stopped immediately & all the drainage systems will have to be revamped.
5- More & More trees will have to be planted at our earliest
6- Cultivable land of Punjab is being vastly replaced by cemented housing colonies; it will have to be stopped at once, otherwise we might lose our 100 % crops instead of 40 %
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