The issue of climate change have been a very hot and debatable topic in these recent years. The rapid growth of the economy post Industrial Revolution in the eighteenth century saw many changes happening around the world.
Coastal area turned into ports, village turned into urban city, forest around the world were cut down, mountain were bombed and turn into quarry. These exponential growth of the last two centuries come with a cost.
The notable cost of these rapid industrial development is the changes occurred in our earth climate. Recent report by Rob Carson found that we might losing our precious paradise on earth. He reported that the Mount Rainier’s glaciers currently melting at six times the historic rate, filling up rivers and killing old-growth forests.
All these occurrences remind us of a very famous Chinese proverb:
Only when the last tree has been cut down, the last fish caught, the last river poisoned, only then will we realize that one cannot eat money.
For this reason we saw many parties from the governments, private entities and also non-government organization around the world are mobilizing the effort to tackle the problem of climate change. The role played by universities such as Universiti Teknologi Malaysia that take part in the initiative to provide solution to the climate problem must be encouraged.
Everyone should play their role to overcome this problem. We as the present generation has a responsibility to hand over this earth to future generation in a way that they could live in prosperous and sustainable way.