When the sky leaks fire

Stephen Mpofu, Perspective

When rains come and the roof of a particular house starts to leak, people occupying different rooms under that roof put their heads together to protect themselves and their property from potential danger.

Tragically, however, the same spontaneous and conscientious response cannot today be attributed to occupants/nations of one house or earth and under one roof, the sky, facing a potential catastrophe of incalculable dimensions.

This discourse is about global warming and the fire that the sky leaks, heating up the earth and causing global warming with the resultant climate change that has put Zimbabwe and the entire Sadc region under siege, threatening human, animal and plant life in the process.

And the cause of all this catastrophic phenomenon is none other than irresponsible, mindless human actions and God, the Creator of the universe, all loving though the Almighty is, should not be expected to come to the rescue of people who deliberately cut their noses to spite their faces, or better still, people who tie nooses around their necks and those of others, climb on chairs to fasten the nooses around rafters ready to kick the chairs away as if unaware of the consequences of the dire actions.

Human beings are the very sources of global warming. Unmodified factory chimneys from industrialised nations such as the United States of America and others as well as coal energy plants spew poisonous carbon gases into the atmosphere, with the result that the ozone layer that protects earth from the sun’s rays is rendered dangerously thin with the result that the fire heats up the earth, causing climate change which spawns recurrent droughts and floods both of which Zimbabwe has experienced, with a visitation by cyclone recently causing floods that destroyed homes, schools and roads in Manicaland and parts of Masvingo province.

That American President Donald Trump has thumbed his nose on the Paris Agreement on measures to combat global warming, so that its factories and coal plants continue to spew dangerous carbon gases into the atmosphere – with probably other developed nations elsewhere also secretly contributing to the corrosion of ozone. This is the kind of blatant selfishness that defies civilised standards and consideration for the safety of a world that God so loved and sent His only begotten son to redeem it from all evil machinations, willful danger posed to His creation on earth included.

But, of course, Zimbabwe and other small nations also — but innocently — contribute in their own small but still dangerous ways to global warming and climate change. It therefore behooves on them to act in ways that do not aggravate global warming and climate change.

In this respect, deforestation for purposes of clearing land for agriculture or to harvest firewood for sale particularly in urban areas, must be outlawed as should also veld fires with dizzying sanctions being imposed on offenders.

Similarly, the bush fires, flagrantly caused for instance by people hunting, must be rendered history in our nation as well as in other countries to protect the environment and its animal and bird inhabitants.

Trees are essential to human and other creatures because they not only absorb and sink dangerous carbon gases from the atmosphere but also draw rainfall which becomes a rarity in treeless areas such as deserts.

Zeroing in on Zimbabwe in the wake of climate change, the Government should be commended for pronouncing conservation and climate-friendly agriculture to produce more food with the scarce foreign currency now being spent on food imports being diverted to other essential national needs. 

But models of conservation agriculture should be decentralised from television audiences in urban and semi-urban areas to the Zimbabwean majority in rural areas who produce food for the nation, as a way of empowering them and with relevant Government officials living and being seen to live among the villagers to provide requisite farming techniques for increased food production. 

According to Government authorities, Zimbabwe boasts more water bodies than any other country in Sadc, which suggests that the country should produce more food under Command Agriculture to counter the effects of drought which has killed thousands of cattle particularly in Matabeleland and other southern areas of the country.

There is also a need for constant policing of the water bodies in point so that these essential sources of human, animal and aquatic livelihoods are not silted by reckless and mindless alluvial gold mining activities. 

Also, destocking appears to be the way to go in the face of pastures drying up so that two or four oxen for drought power and one or two cows for milk per family might be the right way to go to reduce pressure on pastures with more goats, which are browsers, being owned by each family to provide food instead.

Ideally, Ggovernment officials should be more visible in rural areas giving the necessary advice to the folk out there as a way of mitigating the effects of drought since no one knows for sure if and not when climate change will become a proverb not only in Zimbabwe but around the world where the phenomenon is rearing up its different ugly faces.