Weather report : the crisis of climate change

During my many visits (2013-2017) to a fishing village in Tamil Nadu off the Bay of Bengal, I witnessed the coast change further till it lapped at the edges of fishing huts, carrying away more of the sandy beach with it, even as storms became more frequent and intense. The landing beach was the fishers lifeline, a place to launch and park their boats-without it fishing was not possible. The fish catch near the coastline was dropping, and the smaller fishermen who went out in their paddle-driven boats came back with increasingly meagre catches. The young did not want to fish anymore, instead opting to learn other vocations, while those who were too old to fish spent their time reminiscing about their forefathers who had seen different times. The sea gods they prayed to every morning had evidently turned their backs on them.

The term climate change was unknown, or not understood, or that the changes being seen could be caused by conditions far: beyond their control. It was as if everything was slowly, but surely, changing. Not only this community, but those like them around the globe would be the first victims of sea level rise. Their lives were so entangled with the sea that the impact would be catastrophic to their very way of life. On the other hand, perhaps in such entanglements could lie hidden secrets of other ways of being and re-learning how to coexist with the planet.