There’s nothing in science to show that doctors would be especially affected by climate change. Which is a good thing, because apples might be. Among the myriads of micro-changes being wrought on the environment in all three realms—land, air and water—we have an unsettling trend in agriculture. Even vital food crops like rice and wheat are vulnerable.
Meanwhile, the Indian Council for Agricultural Research’s latest study shows apple cultivation is floundering along the lower altitudes in Himachal Pradesh. In a way, the fruit is migrating uphill, like a pilgrim, in search of solitude and suitably cold weather. Not that the higher reaches immunise the hapless apple from distortions in local climates. A week or so ago, early, unseasonal snow destroyed orchards across Kashmir.
Many scientists call this the Anthropocene Age, a hypothetical epoch in the planet’s life where human activity is thought to have left an irreversible mark on the geological plane. Not every scientist agrees. Nor can regimes across the world, fixated on short-term economic advantage, be brought to care for the fact that climate change disproportionately affects marginal communities.
Sheep-rearers in Kyrgyzstan (one of “the lowest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions”) are seeing fundamental changes in their landscape. The rice-growing Malto adivasis of Jharkhand’s uplands are forced to migrate due to hitherto unknown crop blight. The tribes of the Amazon may not have to bother: Brazil’s new ultra-right president is promising both genocide and mass deforestation.
Beyond such “peripheral” news, policy wonks may have noticed a sudden increase in freak weather events. The ‘downpour from hell’ over Kedarnath, God’s Own Flood in Kerala, marooned coastal cities, an asphyxiating capital city up country. That all this involves losses of hundreds of crores (besides affecting millions) may hopefully bring about some attitudinal climate change in the musty corridors of government.