Kanwar Muhammad Dilshad
PAKISTAN’S Coronavirus figures are becoming more worrying with each passing day. The Corona has made the world act in a way as to prove that: Life and healthiness of life must always be the most important objectives for which everything else has to become secondary; · The demands of health are surely much more important than the demands of economics. Health and not the economics should be seated in the driver’s seat in the world affairs; this is what I call Dynamic Paradigm of Health; · A holistic regime of hygiene has to be followed without fail covering external and internal physical hygiene, social, sexual and mental hygiene avoiding all such practices and items that pose threat to health; · Environmental hygiene is extremely important and we have to make sure that the industries and their products do not pollute the environment beyond a certain degree.
· Natural disasters are less “natural” and more man-made and are an attempt to correct the imbalance produced by human activities or to teach humans a lesson. They prove to be savers and not the destroyers in the end. · Covid-19 outbreak has led to cleansing of air and water in an unprecedented way and will in the longer run save more lives than the deaths it has caused. Due to the worldwide lockdown, thousands of deaths that would have otherwise occurred in accidents and murders have been saved. Respiratory diseases will also be under check. · It has also taught man that staying home is important and people should go out only for good and necessary works and not for bad and unhealthy activities. · It has also taught that the religious injunctions are meant for maintaining health and peace; and in the times of emergencies, the religious obligations can also be readjusted to save lives.
· Speaking specifically of Islam, it has prohibited all such items and practices that endanger lives and healthiness of lives like alcohol, gambling, intoxicants, pork, meat of the animals that can threaten health in big ways, promiscuity and homosexuality. It has promoted health-protective measures like personal, sexual, social and environmental hygiene, circumcision, health-protective kinds of prayer and fasting, two years breastfeeding and strict quarantine during epidemics; · Above all, Corona outbreak has taught that the onus to maintain health cannot be just left on individuals and the system will have to be health-protective making sure that the people are not exposed to the items and practices that endanger health and peace.
If we analyse Quranic verses, it is not difficult to conclude that the natural disasters are often, if not always, of man’s own making. Nature only judges and takes corrective action resulting in what we know as natural disasters. These disasters are a way to correct the equilibrium and save the mankind from bigger disasters. See the following verses: Of course, God does not do injustice to mankind in any way whatsoever; on the contrary, mankind does injustice to itself. (10: 44) Whatever good happens to you, it is from God; and whatever bad happens to you, it is on account of yourselves; and We have dispatched an Ambassador for the mankind; and God is enough as witness. (4: 79) Moreover, whatever problem affects you, you have earned it through your own hands, and (the truth is) that (God) pardons most of (your misdeeds). Moreover, you cannot dominate the Earth and cannot find anyone your patron or helper other than God. (42: 30-31) ”You” in the above means the mankind as a whole rather than individuals. If an individual suffers, it is only because of either his own mistake or the mistake of some of his parents, forefathers, relatives or other human beings.
Whether natural disasters are man-made or not has been a topic of debate among environmentalists for decades. Qur’an had categorically declared it about 1500-years back that the disasters are often the result of man’s actions. Now the environmentalists too have finally accepted it. Only recently the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change formed by the UN has issued a report declaring that the global warming is human made. This report has the following salient features: · By unanimous agreement, the 2,500 scientists and government representatives said there is now at least a 90% certainty that mankind is to blame for the warming already being observed. · As to the future, the projections were stark. Among them: – In this century, the planet will warm up by between three and nearly eight degrees Fahrenheit, the weather will be hotter everywhere with some areas becoming drier, while others see more rain and Sea levels will rise. * As a result of warming, the extremes of water are going to be much more unmanageable, both the drought extreme and the risk of floods. The planet is really sure to warm up between 3.2 and 7.8 degrees Fahrenheit; it is 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit since the beginning of the 20th century and about 1 degree Fahrenheit since about 1970. So the rate of warming has increased. That is one of the key aspects of the global temperature increases. * With a greater warming, the amplification of the effects the world is already seeing is expected. So around the subtropical region, there is a drying that has been going on, there are increases in droughts, and some increases in rainfall at higher latitudes. And it is rainfall, some of what used to be snowfall is now occurring as rain.
* There are large-scale patterns of changes in the rainfall and the rainfall distribution, which has real consequences for human activities and for the environment, because it increases the risk of droughts in the subtropics and other places around the world. This is owing to the fact that as temperatures warm up, it creates a drying effect off the atmosphere, on the surface. In other places where it does rain, it is likely to rain harder. And this relates also to changes in hurricanes. And so it means that the extremes of water are going to be much more unmanageable, both the drought extreme and the risk of floods. * One sort of nugget in the report is that the last time the poles were as warm as they could get over the next few decades, due to the greenhouse gases, substantial parts of the Greenland ice sheet and perhaps the Antarctic ice sheet had either melted or disintegrated away into the ocean. And sea level was something like 15 feet higher than today.
Now, the preliminary findings of the 5th Assessment Report have also been released. This further confirms the human hand in environmental changes. It has the following main findings: “Warming of the atmosphere and ocean system is unequivocal. Many of the associated impacts such as sea level change (among other metrics) have occurred since 1950 at rates unprecedented in the historical record. · There is a clear human influence on the climate · It is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of observed warming since 1950, with the level of confidence having increased since the fourth report. · IPCC pointed out that the longer we wait to reduce our emissions, the more expensive it will become. · It is likely (with medium confidence) that 1983—2013 was the warmest 30-year period for 1400 years. · It is virtually certain the upper ocean warmed from 1971 to 2010. This ocean warming accounts, with high confidence, for 90% of the energy accumulation between 1971 and 2010.— To be continued.
—The writer is former Federal Secretary Election Commission of Pakistan and currently Chairman National Democratic Foundation.
