Many thanks
to all participants for submitting their photos and sharing their climate change stories!
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Pape Alé Nguerr, 18 years
St-Louis, SenegalPape Alé is a science student in the lower sixth form at the Cheikh Omar Foutiyou Tall High School in Senegal.
Along with other students in his class he participated in a tree planting campaign.
We were discussing the question "How does climate change affect people's livelihoods?"
My friend Aminata said that climate change or global warming is just a make-believe problem.
Lamine agreed and added that the climate is not changing because it is still cold in winter and hot in summer.
Bineta disagreed and argued that pollution is destroying the ozone layer and that we are more and more exposed to the dangerous radiations from the sun.
I sided with Bineta and explained that pollution is responsible for the dramatic rise in world temperatures and that this might cause serious health problems in the next decades. For instance most skin cancer today is caused by industrial chemicals and the sun's x-rays.
By the same token, my friend Oumar argued that one of the first warning signals was in the 1952 when four hundred people died from "smog" (smoke and fog) in London. As a result, it became illegal to light a wood or coal fire in the city.
I emphasized that some lakes like in Scandinavia and elsewhere were polluted owing to industrial waste. Furthermore, it is noticed that some glaciers are melting in many places across the world and damage associated with coastal flooding is increasing around the world. For example, the sea has recently destroyed many houses in Guet Ndar, a suburb of St-Louis.
My friend Mary wondered whether there are effective solutions to stop global warming, for as a poet said "Our ancestors were born in a young world, but we have come too late in a world that is too old". She decided to sensitise her family to save energy and protect the environment. In conclusion, the group agreed that there is no doubt about the impacts of climate change on our livelihoods. We all realize now that the air we breathe is getting dirtier and dirtier, and more and more dangerous. So to turn the tide, effective actions need to be done: People should change their consumption habits and use public transports; governments should control factories to avoid industrial pollution and we should protect the "Green Lung", the world forests, and encourage tree planting.
On the whole I believe that if the establishment of a "Big Green Wall" in Africa is followed, the way the governement proposes, it will be beneficial for our economy and will contribute to a better climate. As a first step, our partner schools in Saint-Louis organized a cleanup and tree planting event, which is a response to the call for a healthy environment.
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