Every morning, I walk along a street near my house, where there are more and more people and it is getting crowded, trying to share a little space and asking for money to eat. I get into the market next door, and I see increasingly exorbitant prices, while my purchasing power is inversely proportional. An unprecedented crisis, which establishes itself in its various facets: climate, energy, food, health, political, financial... humanitarian!

Addressing climate change is one of the most urgent and complex challenges of our generation and the unstoppable force of climate change has led to the loss of biodiversity, such as affecting species, changing species distribution, and increasing species habitat fragmentation. According to the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), an increase in global temperatures of 2°C puts 5% of species at risk of extinction, and an increase of 4.3°C would increase such a percentage to 16%.

Climate change impacts due to increased greenhouse gas emissions have affected food security in many ways in the drylands of Africa, and high mountain regions of Asia and South America. There are associated cascading risks of global warming impacts on land, livelihoods, food systems, biodiversity, humans and ecosystems, and the level of risks vary across regions (IPCC; Down to Earth, 2019).

As a student studying environmental management, I love to collect all the packages that have been used once to prevent them from going into trash bins. Yesterday, I brought some plastic packages to shop for vegetables, but the supermarket still asked me to pack everything with new single-use plastic packages just for the convenience of checkout. I couldn’t help but complain to the cashier, “what a waste!”

Wind installation near Hassan, Karnataka, India (Photo provided by the author)

Here's the first of many pictures I took of the dead Quiver Trees.