Kochi: Issues pertaining to climate change and global warming may be hot, but Earth Day observance in the city was a cold affair with only a few voluntary organisations holding seminars and discussions, seeking to sensitise the student community on the bleak future that awaits the earth.
The Kerala Sastra Sahitya Parishad (KSSP) district committee held a seminar on ‘Climate change and Kerala’s biodiversity’ in Thripunithura in which the adverse impact of global warming on the fishing sector was the focus of discussion. Noted environmentalist U.K. Gopalan, who moderated the seminar, said certain common fish varieties were fast dwindling in numbers as a result of unpredictable weather changes.
“What we feared would happen in the 1970s is getting real,” he said pointing at the decline in fish production in the country.
N. Chandramohan Kumar, who inaugurated the seminar, said two main bioactivities, photosynthesis and respiration, producing carbon dioxide (CO2) and oxygen (O2) were being thrown off balance owing to climate change. In a separate programme, the Alangad zone unit of the KSSP held at Muppathadam drawing and quiz competitions on climate change for school children. About 25 students took part in the competitions.
In Aluva, the Association for Environmental Protection organised a seminar on conservation of water resources and preservation of wetlands in the prevailing environmental context in the State.
