Seeing the current scenario, one can imagine how desperate the issue of climate change and global warming has become. From melting glaciers to dried rivers, every now and then there’s a concrete addition to environmental disasters. From 1999 to 2018, Pakistan has seen many unfriendly climate changes. Being the nuclear power, our country has fall prey to droughts, ranking 5th in the countries that are worst effected by extreme climate happenings.

The foremost reason of Pakistan’s hazardous weather is overpopulation. The population blast with no planning has created a new atmosphere of necessities effecting the climate in the end. The large mass needs more land, more food, more shelters and other basic requirements of daily life that has increased the demand for industries, agriculture and deforestation simultaneously. Agriculture uses 70 percent of the world’s water resources, 50 percentage of habitual land and causes 80 percent of biodiversity loss increasing global warming with nitrous oxide and methane. Furthermore, one of the main causes of rapid deforestation is also agriculture.

The environment is supposed to sustain life, however, the environmental catastrophe has been creating the scenario of extension for the biodiversity. The animal agriculture, farming and fishing are one of the leading causes of the climate crisis, similarly, the transportation of food for import and export systems is another cause. Not just halted by food transport but traveling and human transport has a high impact on the atmosphere. In Pakistan, it is quite common to own old vehicles carrying dilapidated engines along with cheap fuels that has been increasing greenhouse emissions. The pollutants found in our air are a threat to life. Air pollution keeps being the reason of over 128,000 deaths in Pakistan. Environmental issue in Pakistan has become a silent public health emergency.

In addition, the burning of plastic creates poisonous chemicals in the atmosphere which are threatening to the planet. They also increase the other leading causes of climate change like water pollution, waste management and land pollution due to their undegradable behavior. What’s not surprising is that around 3.3 million tonnes of plastic are wasted that ends in landfills, unmanaged dumps or strewn about land and rivers and oceans each year in Pakistan.

Pakistan’s ecology and economy have been greatly impacted by the industrial revolution, urbanisation, noise pollution, poor sanitation, ozone layer depletion, pesticide usage, soil erosion, natural disasters, oceans and fisheries, desertification & deforestation, and flooding. One estimate places the country’s average daily cost of environmental deterioration and damage to natural resources at around US$ 1 billion annually.

The environmental hazards are supposed to be dealt with globally as one planet. The act of reforestation is one of them. As the current research shows that the largest forest, Amazon is a man made forest and once there was a civilization in that land, which is currently the reason of 20 percentage of oxygen that human beings require.

Using fewer machines and wasting less energy can lessen the need for rapid technological advances that invades over climate. Securing food and not wasting it decreases the growing agricultural need and hunger index. In an end, these environmental hazards will lead to a catastrophic end to the world if the menace is not impeded.

The writer is a student and a freelance columnist, based in Balochistan.