Gulf News

Halting a vicious cycle

- By Aftab Ahmed

The existence of the Earth is solely dependent on atmospheri­c temperatur­e. A slight change to this causes problems to all life forms on the planet. To fight hunger, some say it is important to eradicate poverty in poor countries. Hunger is generated by shortage or non-availabili­ty of food and food is created from resources on our Earth. Rain, water, fire and food grain all depend upon the temperatur­e of the environmen­t.

Any increase or decrease in temperatur­e can upset the environmen­tal balance needed for production of food, which is essential for life to survive. Most unfortunat­ely, our greed and ambition to acquire material goods, territory, power and have control, leads to more developmen­t and constructi­on, which generates more heat into the environmen­t. This increase in temperatur­e can affect the production of food and the growth of lifeforms. Poor countries have more hungry people due to lack of resources. The only solution to the problem is to reduce and control population growth. We have seen the havoc caused by floods, cloudburst­s, storms, melting glaciers, typhoons, landslides and many other natural calamities, due to global warming. All this results from an increase in population which creates an increase in demand for growth and developmen­t

The United Nations should take this up as an important matter and should expect positive action from all countries. China has a good model for family planning. Let us reduce population and global warming, to fight hunger and poverty.

The reader is a resident of Dubai.

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from United Arab Emirates