A worrying shift from existence in tune with nature

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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. November is halfway through, and you, just like me, might also be wondering: When will winter start in Delhi? The national capital is already grappling with severe fog. Its air quality is regularly dipping to dangerous levels; the city was declared the most polluted capital city in the world on Wednesday.

But where did this mess begin? We need to go back in history, to 2 October 1974, to track the origin. The meteorological department recorded a maximum temperature of 34°C and a minimum of 22°C that day. On the same day fifty years later the highest and the lowest temperatures stood at 37°C and 28°C, respectively, in Delhi.

If you think a temperature variation of 2°C won’t make much of a difference, you may be mistaken. The Industrial Revolution in Europe led to a 1.1°C–1.3°C rise in temperature over the two-and-a-half centuries that followed. It caused enormous havoc.

Also read | The worrying rise of fraudsters on the prowl online Many places on earth today are suffering from extreme heat. Rivers’ flows have ebbed. Antarctica, the Arctic, and Siberia have been losing their ice cover at an alarming pace.

Meteorologists warn that if the average global temperature rises by even 1°C, it will have catastrophic consequences. We are already facing its preliminary impacts. In 2024, May and June were declared the hottest months in the history of independent India by the Meteorological Department of India.

The issue is not limited to a rise in summer temperatures. The rains and winters have also become erratic. As per IMD data, the south-west monsoon covered the whole of India by 2 July this year.