Gaming

Global Warming: Is It Real For You?

The information age has landed with a blow to the head. In fact, it hasn’t just landed; it has taken root and made a firm home within our society. Every day we have the opportunity to flood ourselves with new information: magazine articles, blogs, podcasts and e-books. And yet, as we revel in this golden age of information, we manage to casually take on our greatest challenge as a species and jot it down on a virtual to-do list for the future: “global warming, fix next week.”

Just tonight, while discussing the subject, my six-year-old daughter dropped her shoulders, rolled her eyes, and moaned “not again!” Too much information can be as bad as too little, since we run the risk of being established by desensitization. What’s more, inexperienced information to help us internalize it is of little use. Experience allows us to assign an emotion to the new information; this is what makes it meaningful.

This being the case, I am not here to overload you with data on global warming, there are plenty of pages on the subject on the net and the “almost” president of the United States, Al Gore, has adequately illustrated the threat of global warming in his award-winning film. , The uncomfortable truth. My interests have more to do with the effects of global warming on plants and more specifically on plants that live within my direct human experience.

How will the increase in mean global temperature affect the plants that live around it? The question was sparked by the unprecedented dry summer we have just experienced in Johannesburg. After a relentless hot season, interrupted only by two scant rains, Johannesburg’s surrounding grasslands turned from green to brown and shortly thereafter to black as the inevitable veld fires began. These areas of the savanna are rich in medicinal plants, including the hardy African potato, Artemisia, and a host of golden savanna grasses. While these areas are often burned in winter, the off-season fires came at the wrong time during the plant’s growth cycle. As a result, some plants were severely damaged, while many did not survive at all. It was this experience that happened on my doorstep that really caught my eye.

My local African potatoes are just a reflection of a much larger problem. “About 20 to 30 percent of the plant and animal species evaluated so far are at increased risk of extinction if increases in global mean temperature exceed 1.5 to 2.5 degrees Celsius.” Water supply and drought are not the only problems, some species of plants and animals are temperature sensitive for reproduction. With the onset of global temperatures; Botanical gardens around the world have noticed that plants around the world are booming earlier than usual.

We are reminded that global warming was created by factors such as industry, traffic, and agricultural practices, to name a few; however, when we follow the path to the source, these contributors are reduced to one place: the place you call home. The global warming dilemma is the name itself. It evokes a sense of “wholeness” or, if you prefer, a sense of grandeur that is hard to match with the hustle and bustle of the day-to-day family home, hard to absorb and say, “It’s my problem.” You may want to try this yourself; What is the first image that comes to mind when you hear the term “global warming”?

With home in mind, let’s avoid the multitude of tips available to reduce global warming and consider what experiences we may have that will help us internalize this mass of information and make it a reality. Experimenting means processing our world through our five senses, perhaps it is the time you take to brush your teeth while leaving the tap running and saying a sad goodbye to those drops of water that not even your grandchildren will benefit from. Maybe it’s taking a stroll through your local botanical garden like it’s the last time you could, or maybe it’s as simple as taking the time to realize what your body feels like when you experience thirst. The fact is, until the information about global warming becomes real and experiential for each and every person, we can expect a few good, very dry summers to come.

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