| Red alert
‘How climate change might destroy Lagos’
By TESSY IGOMU
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
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The good old days: Lagos Bar Beach in the 60s
Photo: THE SUN PUBLISHING
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In her youthful years, Funke Oke always looked forward to
weekend visits to the Bar-Beach with her parents.
Bounding down the white sand littered with sea shells, she
would stop to watch crabs making a quick dash for their nests,
smugly hidden from the prying eyes of adventurous kids and
fun seekers.
But visiting the beach recently, after being out of the country
for 25 years, was a painful experience for Funke. The stretch
of white beach sand had been taken over by water.
Where the sand once stood were giant stones and defence pigs
used to break the strength of the storm and possibly, stop
water from flowing into houses, as has been the case in recent
years. Red flags, literally dancing to the macabre beats of
the ocean waves now stand at the spots where she loved to
make sand dunes, screaming danger warnings at adventurers.
With tears cascading down the sides of her face, Funke, reminisced
on her childhood fantasies and couldn’t stop wondering
what had happened to her ‘childhood sanctuary’.
Like Funke, every Nigerian that remembers vividly the attraction
the Bar-Beach had for fun seekers in the 80’s and early
90’s, especially during the Yuletide Season, feels saddened
by its recent state.
In the last 20 years, there has been considerable rise in
the sea level, not just around the Lagos coastline, but globally,
owing to climate change.
The term climate change is frequently used but hardly understood.
To an average Nigerian, it is all about the depletion of the
ozone layer, which causes the sun rays to get to the earth
directly. But recent research shows that it goes beyond just
the ozone layer to critical issues that concern all mankind.
Everyday, the media continues to regale the world with news
and pictures of countries currently being devastated by extreme
weather conditions. The Sahara Desert is fast encroaching
on the northern part of Nigeria and the sea level is on the
rise everyday.
Manila, capital of The Philippines, has had its share of mudslides,
earthquakes and typhoons in recent times, which has resulted
in the death of hundreds of people.
One dominant factor that has always surfaced in the situations
is climate change.
To the lay man, these are natural occurrences. But environmentalists
are attributing them to climate change.
Climate change is currently seen as the biggest threat to
the world’s environment with devastating consequence
for humans, animals and the eco-system. Nigeria is likely
to be one of the most negatively affected countries, owing
to its low lying, highly populated coastline with heavy concentration
of income generating investments.
According to the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC), a group of scientists from all over the world set-up
to research on climate change, Africa is one of the most vulnerable
continents to climate change and climate variability. And
within Africa, Nigeria is one of the countries expected to
be worst affected.
IPCC recently predicted that the sea level might rise drastically
by 2050.
Further studies have shown that climate change, which is the
situation of the weather over a long period of time owing
to human activities and natural variability, have occurred
in the past owing to natural processes. But recently, there
are indications that human activities have contributed largely
to the problem.
Environmental experts informed that between 1860 and 1940,
temperature records rose, leading to global warming. The development
was tied to carbon dioxide produced during the industrial
revolution. But between 1940 and 1960 the temperature went
down and it was attributed to the presence of aerosols (dust
particles) in the atmosphere.
But from 1970 it went up and was expected to drop by the 80’s.
However, in 1988, the IPCC finally predicted that if the climate
continued the way it was, there might be a global destruction.
Every day, green house gases, which include carbon dioxide,
methane, nitrous oxide and chlorofluorocarbons are released
into the atmosphere by bush burning, generators, cars, industries,
tree felling, among others, creating a thick blanket in the
atmosphere.
Though sun’s rays travel to the earth in three forms
of light, the one that hits the earth and is absorbed is the
infrared light. This blanket created by the green house gases
does not stop the sun’s ray from getting to the earth
but prevents the infrared light not needed by the earth to
be reflected back to the atmosphere. The light is absorbed
by the green house gases and some actually manage to escape.
The quantity of the infrared that mixes with the gases makes
it warmer and this in turn, keeps the earth warm. But recently,
two green house gases are being produced, resulting in global
warming. Over 55 percent of global warming is caused by carbon
dioxide, produced mainly by human based activities.
According to environmental experts, daily, people put too
much into the atmosphere without thinking of how it would
be expelled. Green house gases, they note, take long to decay.
At the rate it is, even if when the degradation of the environment
is stopped, it would take as long as 100 years for those in
the atmosphere to diffuse.
Climate change has been largely blamed on industrialization.
In the last 100, 000 years, humans have been recorded to have
created excess gas, resulting in increased temperature of
the earth by +0.5. It is believed that it would soon rise
to 2 or 6 degrees.
Experts explained that global warming has continuously caused
the melting of ice in the polar region, consequently giving
rise to ocean surge as has been the case of Bar Beach lately.
If carbon emission is not reduced, Lagos would experience
tropical disturbances with fatalities, experts disclose.
The Director, Centre for Climate Change and Environmental
Research, Ogun State University Professor Temi Ologunorisha,
while speaking with Daily Sun stressed that
the ocean has expanded owing to climate change and the increasing
temperature of the sea.
Man under the biosphere, he noted, has interfered with natural
balance and caused dislocation in climate system through industrialization
and carbon emission.
“Man, by tinkering with the energy system, has made
the climate unpredictable and warmer,” he asserted.
Prof. Ologunorisha explained that when the sea becomes abnormally
warm, the likelihood of tropical disturbances like hurricane,
typhoon and tsunami becomes very high.
He noted that the temperature of the sea around Lagos, at
the moment is 26 degrees centigrade. Meanwhile, what it takes
to trigger tropical disturbance is just 27 degrees centigrade.
“The sea as a carbon sink absorbs carbon dioxide. Consequently,
the more it absorbs because of the dense green house gases
in the atmosphere, the hotter it becomes, increasing chances
of tropical storm in this region. This shows that all the
coastal regions are endangered because of anthropogenic (human)
interferences. The vulnerability of Lagos is very high in
the face of tropical storm,” he warned.
Researches further carried out by the Inter-governmental Panel
on Climate Change (IPCC), showed that the sea level would
rise between 1.1 and 5 meters by 2050 and between 80cm and
6 metres by 2100.
“It is thought that a further 1 degree rise in the surface
of sea temperature in the Atlantic Ocean will create the conditions
required to create hurricanes off the coast of Nigeria,”
states the IPCC research.
Also, any rise by two metres, according to the 2008 UK Public
Interest Research Centre’s report, would cause considerable
global economic havoc to 22 of the world’s top cities,
including Lagos.
For a developing country like Nigeria, the vulnerability level
is so high. Nigeria, like other third world countries, lacks
the wherewithal to combat climate change like the developed
world. Even the developed world is finding it difficult to
cope with tropical disturbances that are threatening their
existence.
The world would not forget in a hurry as the United States
of America (USA) with all its technology to forestall and
combat emergencies, watched helplessly as the whole of New
Orleans was submerged in 2007.
Though, developed countries have been urged to cut down their
carbon emission to help save the planet, it is believed that
the responsibility lies more on developing countries to focus,
at the moment, on shifting from unnecessarily acquired lifestyles
to climate friendly alternatives.
Virtually every home in Nigeria uses cheap generators that
have flooded the market. Apart from the generators being high
carbon emitters, they have sent many people, including entire
families, to their early graves.
Vehicles have been identified to be one of the highest pollutants.
The number of cars on the road has increased in the last 10
years. Cars have assumed a status symbol in the country, with
an individual driving as many as five cars. With the Yuletide
season just a month away, there is already a mad rush to acquire
tokunbo (second hand) cars to show off to families at home.
Deforestation also contributes to carbon emission. A lot of
carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere when forests
are cleared and when wood from them is used as sources of
energy domestically. The absence of plants and trees leads
to large volumes of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Planting
of trees without proper maintenance also releases lots of
carbon dioxide as the tree shuts up, releasing gases too.
Indiscriminate disposal of domestic wastes, animal wastes
as well as domestic sewage treatment plant releases methane
which is three times as effective as carbon dioxide.
According to an environmental expert, since little awareness
is being created about climate change, the danger it poses
and the habits that can help produce a cleaner, better environment,
the fate of Lagos and ultimately Nigeria might hang in the
balance with uncontrolled green house gas emission, mostly
carbon dioxide.
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