Lessons from the rain
Fiji and other Pacific Islands are extremely vulnerable to climate change and we have already started feeling its adverse effects over the past few years.
ACCORIDNG to the Christian Bible, there was a tragic flood during the days of Noah.
It all started with a spell of heavy rain that lasted 40 days and 40 nights.
Forty days was long enough to drown the highest mountain on earth and destroy all humans and animals, except those in Noah’s ark.
The past two weeks have been wet as a drowned rat, but they were nowhere near the intense deluge that rained down on earth and its inhabitants during Noah’s days.
If you seriously reflect on the weather and its intensity, one thing is for sure, we are facing the brunt of climate change.
In 2018, experts on the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change highlighted the unprecedented scale of the challenge required to keep warming at 1.5°C.
In 2023, five years later, that challenge, experts said, became even greater due to a continued increase in greenhouse gas emissions.
Why? Because the pace and scale of what the world had done so far, and current plans, had been insufficient to tackle climate change.
Humans’ excessive production of unsustainable levels of energy and our burning of fossil fuels for over a century has influenced industrialisation and pushed development in the world but unfortunately — to our own detriment.
IPCC said this has resulted in more frequent and more intense extreme weather events that have caused increasingly dangerous impacts on nature and people in every region of the world.
“Every increment of warming results in rapidly escalating hazards. More intense heatwaves, heavier rainfall and other weather extremes further increase risks for human health and ecosystems,” it said.
“In every region, people are dying from extreme heat and climate-driven food and water insecurity is expected to increase with increased warming.”
When these risks combine with other adverse events, such as pandemics and thoughtless wars, they become even more difficult to manage.
In the iTaukei language, not many words describe rain or rainy weather.
A few common ones are draki ucauca or draki suasua (wet weather), uca bi or bisa ( very heavy rain) and uca mirimiri (slight drizzle).
By the look of things, new words would have to be developed to describe the spell of rain that goes on for over a week (at least 10 days) and affects all parts of the country.
Historically, March is a wet month and so is April. People in olden day Fiji believed the rains from March to April caused the fattening of the duruka in the fields and drava at sea (low catch).
They also mark the last two months of the Fiji’s cyclone season.
Now, with recent flash floodings in the Western Division, caused by torrential rain, the Minister for National Disaster, Sakiasi Ditoka, has stressed the critical need to establish a dedicated drainage board.
We’ve had drainage boards in the past but they were virtually inactive and under resourced. That will have to change in order to effectively address the ongoing problem of floodings due to poor drainage in our towns and cities.
Fiji and other Pacific Islands are extremely vulnerable to climate change and we have already started feeling its adverse effects over the past few years.
According to the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) the most substantial impacts of climate change include losses of coastal infrastructure and land, more intense cyclones and droughts, failure of subsistence crops and coastal fisheries, losses of coral reefs and mangroves, and the spread of certain diseases.
It added that climate change will affect the Pacific way of life and the sustainable development of our islands in profound ways.
It will intensify extreme weather events, such as storms, cyclones, floods, droughts and heat waves.
In the last decade, there were three times more weather-related natural catastrophes, mostly floods and windstorms, in the world than in the 1960s.
Rises in sea level, and storm surges will result in saltwater entering freshwater supplies called saline intrusion. This means that there will be less water available to drink and to grow plants and food. Climate change may also alter rainfall patterns.
A change in rainfall patterns will mean two things – the possibility of more droughts and flooding.
Some places will receive more rainfall, and in other areas, less rainfall, or more intense rainfall but of a shorter duration which will result in droughts.
Droughts for a long period can have other effects such as placing forests at high risk from fires. Droughts will also harden the soil, thus making it less able to absorb rain when it eventually comes.
Rain in the past two weeks should teach us that climate change is not too far away and will happen in the future. It is a natural phenomenon, only made drastic my human activities, whose adverse effects we are already experiencing, which means that this will get worse if we do nothing. Climate is here and it’s real.
This week, most schools closed for up to three days. That equates to around 20 hours of missed classes.
Some civil servants had to stay home, increasing the backlog of work in government ministries and departments. Court houses closed, farmers and market vendors could not sell their produce and those in the fish business could not make money because the weather did not allow fishermen and women to go out to sea.
Business and sporting activities around the country were affected and most rural roads were left in terrible conditions.
In our community, there was no water supply for most of the day and the funny thing about water is, both drought and too much rain can hamper the supply of water to taps.
Imagine if heavy rain and flooding become frequent in the future.
Each time we face extreme rainy conditions and floods, let’s not just take out our raincoats and brollies and enjoy a snuggle under the blanket. Let’s connect it to human activities and think of what we can do to help address climate change.
Our daily individual lifestyles can have a profound impact and influence on the state of our planet and when push comes to shove, our individual choices will matter and the little practical things we do can do more, more than all the bureaucratic summits we can attend in our lifetime.
We can start with everyday choices and everyday things - the electricity we use, the food we eat and the way we travel, to make a difference in the world.
Every drop of rain during a prolonged and heavy downpour is a lesson waiting to be told and an alarm bell, warning us that our lives and future hang in the balance.
Until we meet on this same page same time next week, stay blessed, stay healthy and stay safe!!