Photo: Noah's Ark and flood.
2021/10/17
The summer of 2021 is very turbulent. In addition to the severe epidemic, climate change has caused extreme climates to occur more frequently, which seems to be a wake-up call for humans all over the world.
In July 2021, floods hit Western European countries. On the 17th, more than 150 people were killed. It's possible that the figure may continue to rise, making this Europe's worst flood. In July, a landslide disaster struck Shizuoka, Japan. Rainfall in four days surpassed the average July record set since 1940, and severe earth-rock flow resulted in deaths and property damage. Coincidentally, heavy rainfall occurred in Zhengzhou, Henan Province, China on the 20th, causing floods. Official Chinese data show that the rainfall in the three days is almost equal to the rainfall in a year.
In June 2021, there was a historic heat wave in the northwestern United States, which claimed the lives of nearly 200 people. Russia at high latitudes was also affected by heat waves. The average temperature in July this year was 10 degrees higher than that in previous years, causing serious forest fires. On the border between the United States and Canada and Nevada, a fire was triggered by lightning on July 4, which is still burning, and has burnt more than 21,000 acres of woodland.
The cause of the disaster
Disasters such as heat waves, droughts, wildfires, and floods have complex causes, but the emergence of these extreme climates seems to point to global warming as the source of the problem. Climate scientists point out that for every 1 degree increase in global average temperature, the atmosphere’s water storage capacity will increase by 7%, which will increase the likelihood of heavy rainfall occurrences. Xu Huangxiong, a distinguished researcher at the Center for Environmental Change of the Taiwan Academia Sinica and professor of the Department of Atmospheric Sciences at National Taiwan University, also said that in the future, droughts and floods will happen in turn, because when the environment gets hotter, the air contains more water, and under the same climate system, the rainfall will be a lot greater than before.
In fact, people have known for a long time that something is wrong with the earth and the environment. People have known for a long time that something is amiss with the world and the ecosystem. In 2015, the Paris Agreement brought countries together to decrease carbon emissions in the hopes of keeping global warming below 2 degrees Celsius. People are also aware that lowering carbon emissions is the only way to avert global warming at this time. However, what people know better is that most countries in the world cannot let go of their greed and desires, and most of them are unable to implement this agreement.
For economic development and industrial development, people burn oil and coal; in order to expand the farming area, people burn rain forests and plant cash crops; for the convenience of life, a large number of disposable plastic products are used and discarded immediately; People eat meat, catch up on fashion, and take the quickest and most convenient mode of transportation. The prosperous and beautiful life that people pursue is accompanied with a large amount of carbon footprint. People know that everything they currently enjoy can only be obtained by continuously exploiting the earth's resources and the right to survival of other species, but for our own benefit, we still choose to pretend to be invisible.
However, nature and disasters will continue to remind people to "see" their own problems in his way. If climate change and extreme climate problems continue to worsen, there will be more climate refugees in the future, severe shortages of water, food, and energy, and wars over resources between nations and races will inevitably occur.
Conscience is the Noah's Ark of mankind
There is a story about Noah's Ark in the Bible: God observed human beings battling, fighting, and robbing each other ceaselessly, turning the world into purgatory. He was very sad for the sins committed by human beings. God said: "I will destroy all the humans, animals, insects, and birds in the air that I have created from the ground." But He also hopes that the new generation of people can repent and build an ideal world.
Among the sinful people, God specially selected Noah's family to be the seeds of a new generation of mankind. "Genesis" records: "Noah was a righteous man; he was a perfect man in the generations at the time." His sons Shem, Ham and Japheth did not go astray under strict education.
As a result, God warned them that they would be destroyed in seven days and instructed them to construct an ark out of gopher wood. Others laughed at Noah's family as they began to build the Ark, and they continued to do wicked things. They didn't trust Noah when he warned them that God was ready to rain and destroy the wicked.
This story serves as a reminder to future generations that it is mankind’s own bad thoughts and acts that destroy the globe, and that the key to actually preserving the world and individuals is the inner strength of goodness known as "conscience." People's lives must change in order to reduce carbon emissions. Everyone must act in accordance with their conscience in order to assist one another, share resources, and learn how to live in harmony with the overall ecological ecosystem. What is the best way to achieve this? All depend on the will of the true conscience of mankind. "Only when the conscience is awakened may people, groups, countries, even multinational organizations, and the entire globe achieve real progress after the painful experience," said Dr. Hong Daozi, the master of Tai Ji Men and vice-chairman of the Association of World Citizens of the United Nations/ NGO.
Dr. Hong Daozi further stated that good heart and good thoughts, good words and good deeds will transform oneself and the surrounding environment. One person spreads kindness to ten, one hundred, one thousand, or even ten thousand people. The butterfly effect will definitely turn the world and inspire even more people to move up and to be good together.
The power of the heart is far-reaching, and a person's good deeds can also affect the world. Greta Sangberg, a well-known environmental protection child, went on a class strike at the age of 15 to protest her home nation of Sweden, urging the government to genuinely cut carbon emissions to the Paris Agreement's criteria, inspiring many students around the world to join her. She then shocked the world by giving a speech at the 2019 United Nations Climate Change Conference in New York. Her striking action prompted millions of schoolchildren to become concerned about global warming. The world was turned around by Sangberg's "conscience" and "I am willing to do more." We can try to calm down and ask ourselves, "What can I do?" In fact, the answer lies in our hearts and hands.
If the current global disasters are the consequence of a natural counterattack created by human beings' unrestrained small evils, which have accumulated into great evils and persecuted the environment, then the possibility of the restoration of the earth’s environment must have been fermented from the good deeds of the individual’s conscience and spread to all parts of the world. Each of us is a very important conscience inspiration. The sustainable development of the earth will be realized and will arrive quickly once everyone is aware of this and begins to pass on conscience and good deeds.