Sarah Shamim

WIT

by Sarah Shamim

 

Climate Change Wlimate Change Kuch nahee hota!”, Hundreds of Pakistanis continue to obviate the strain of social responsibility. In a realm not too separate from the reality where said people push the narrative that climate change does not exist, exist the deaths of about 2000 people in Pakistan’s 2015 heatwave, something that occurred precisely due to the changing climate, according to Asif Shuja, of the Pakistan Environmental Protection Agency.


Water bodies getting clogged by Poly-ethene and permeated by oxo-plastic has rendered the Indus river responsible for being the second-largest contributor of plastic to oceans. The crisis of water pollution in Pakistan alone has numerous facets and nuances to it, with little to none of them talked about. If a nation does not take ownership and accept accountability for the problems that face it, how can it possibly resolve said problems?

While it is true that legislative and industrial-logistical changes are absolutely vital if we aim to change the statistics for the better, there is always room for more individual effort to be made to improve the situation if you look at the micros. As simplistic as it sounds, the four Rs — Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle — really work. It is vital for the more privileged classes to reduce their water consumption for the underprivileged to have their share of sanitary water.

Something as simple as refusing to indulge in activities like water fights, water festivals and elaborate baths can work wonders to reduce one’s individual contribution to the water wastage crisis. Similarly, showering consumes a lot more water than bathing using your good old, conventional baalti does. Albeit uncomfortable and not as luxurious, the baalti, so quintessential and inherently desi in its own glory, does actually help one conserve water. Reusing is also easy and does not require money. The same water can be used in the kitchen to boil multiple vegetables, for example. Water left over after sterilizing something by boiling it can be used to water your Aloe-Vera ka gamla. That’s recycling for a desi household!

Besides those being excellent, scalable, sustainable and simple little things that can be incorporated into the daily lives of people that can’t entirely remedy the situation but can definitely do something, there is a lot more that can actually be done on an individual level alone. There aren’t just four Rs that exist, there is so much rethinking, reimagining and realizing left to be done. There is a charcuterie board of Rs sprawled before us to pick and choose from to do our part in helping avert the climate crisis.

In her article unpacking motherhood during the Anthropocene, Sarah Elahi writes, “You start out learning about global warming and the greenhouse effect in school, nobody talks about it outside of school, and one day, you grow up, leaving behind awareness of environmental degradation like a discarded binder in a locker.” I feel like most Pakistani kids share this specific rhetoric in school where the Earth is considered to be this abstract entity and climate change is sad and all, but we’re never made to realize that it has and will have serious implications on us and our lives. I didn’t talk about climate change with my parents until I was 16 only when I brought it up and was met with partial eye-rolls and partial “Beta iska kia kersaktay hain” s. In middle school, I was told to paint “Save The Earth”, bright green and blue, on fresh single-use and non-biodegradable paper with paints containing non-biodegradable acrylic polymers.

I want things to change.

The biggest change that will pave way for remedying the water crisis or any other facet of the general climate crisis, is discourse. I want these topics to be spoken about in Urdu, realistically, repeatedly, casually, over and over and over again when your khala comes over, when your maamu comes over, heck, even when your phuphi comes over. I want uncles to freak out about it like they freak out about inflation, while sipping mint lemonade instead of smoking suttas. I want these words of discourse to be over cups of chai made not from tea-bags because they contribute to extra single-use plastic waste. I want these words to be exchanged not during water balloon fights between cousins, but over shared ghar ke chaat-masala-laden french fries eaten out of molasses plates instead of paper ones.


Discourse leads to action and with the internet being a thunderstorm-like democratizing force, especially for the desi Twitterati and with Climate Marches ensuing in most of our major cities, there is so much that a common person can do to get the attention for the policy-makers to listen and act. When the policy-makers will listen and act, Government endorsed, scalable and sustainable laws and bills will pass which could potentially change the water crisis statistics for the better. Writers, photographers, artists, and creators can create art for the awareness of the water crisis. There is a dire need for climate journalism in Pakistan and as personally, an aspiring journalist myself, I have already worked with an NGO — Climate Tracker — working to promote climate journalism in areas like South Asia. People will not realize the gravity of the situation until the privileged responsibly use their privilege.

The Climate March in Karachi was truly something else. I held my poster — made of a repurposed aatay-ka-paper-bag — high but my hopes higher. Soon enough I was invited by someone who works with the minister of my local constituency, PS-111, to help them draft a bill to resolve issues such as the plastic crisis and replantation. The Government ended up listening after one march. It is everyone’s shared responsibility to push for what will actually make a difference, which is, the action taken by the Government.

“Be careful!” I could feel the nails of my Qatar trip chaperone dig a little bit into the skin of my arm as she helped me climb up what I would classify as a very mild hill in the Oxygen Park there. What astounded me more than the hills was the fact that all the water flushed out of toilets from the Qatar fund dorms was used to irrigate the park.

Scalable, sustainable solutions that industrialists, civil engineers, and policymakers can introduce are countless. What if buildings were designed to ensure that less water is wasted. Now one would question, why would an engineer put in all the noble work to ensure a building is water-efficient, and the answer to that is: The LEED Certification. An organization in the USA gives out certifications for “green” architecture, which is what the building in Qatar also had. The shiny LEED plaque is becoming a huge asset, almost a requirement for one to be considered a good architect. My city only has one such building, the HBL Building at good old Teen Talwar. Sustainable architecture could be a government-endorsed scheme that comes about.

Additionally, barriers could possibly be placed on the water consumption of the rich and elite so that the more disadvantaged social classes can get their share of sanitary water.

To counter the sanitation issue, government-funded purification campaigns could be enacted that somehow incorporate Reverse Osmosis somehow without the heaps of water waste it comes with, converting hard water to sanitary water.

It is to be noted that Pakistan has one of the most wasteful irrigation systems globally if the government funds an upgrade to that, we get more water and better harvests, truly a win-win.

In his article, Hasan Abbas elaborated upon Dam Equivalents, essentially dams that take away the down-sides that come with dams. Very evidently another win-win situation. This solution even seems viable in foresight because of the public and media attention that the dam fund scheme drew to itself. And truly all politics and intersections aside, shines a ray of optimism.

But as I have said before, all of these changes can transcend the realm of theory to enter into the reality that we live only if there is the discourse. If people will care about it, people will talk about it. And if people will talk about it people will march for it. And if people march for it the government will consider solving the dilemma. That is how everyone truly has a role to play in fighting climate change.