Cape Town - While a recent report co-ordinated by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) found that climate change contributes to many of the continent's socio-economic issues, the 34th Access Habitable Planet held a workshop to introduce university students to the emerging discipline of Earth System Sciences.
The 36 students who attended the workshop, which took place this month, explored, among other things, atmosphere-ocean circulations, the El Nino phenomenon as well as continent drifts and how these are influencing the earth’s habitable circumstances. The course also focused on human-environment relationships, both in the distant past and present, to investigate the impact future climate change may have.
Students explored places such as Table Mountain, the West Coast Fossil Park, the Harold Porter National Botanical Gardens just to name a few. The field trips were aimed to demonstrate how science plays a vital role not only on the planet but also how exceptional Southern Africa really is.
Department of Earth Science lecturer Yafah Williams said that the Habitable Planet Workshop aims to inspire undergraduate students to take up careers and research in the emerging disciplines of Earth System Sciences in Southern Africa, with the hope that young scientists will contribute to finding solutions to the current challenges facing the planet.
“Climate change is real. The effects of climate change are often not understood to be directly relateable to daily life, in that people tend to think of this as a scientific concept, without understanding the impact it has on factors such as food security and human health. Climate change ultimately impacts the habitability of our planet and everyone experiences these effects in some way or another.”
“Socio-economic circumstances and lack of resources in Africa puts immense strain on sustainable living. With the focus more on poverty alleviation and economic development, factors affecting the state and wellbeing of our environment and planet can often be overlooked,” said Williams.
Keynote speaker at the workshop, Dr Adriaan Engelbrecht said that part of the problem with climate change is that the changes accumulate over time, so it's rarely noticed until it is too late.
“I think better decision making needs to be done with the aim of reaching communities with tangible legislation. Climate change is a natural phenomenon, the problem is however that this ’bout’ of change is way faster than anyone anticipated, our response to the problem has not been appropriate. For us to survive we need a faster response to the problems we are likely to face.”
“The youth of Africa needs to take this challenge head on. We are ahead of the rest of the globe with the sheer amount of natural resources available to us. Some of these resources are fresh water, arable land, fish stocks, biodiversity and the list continues. Our youth needs to be equipped to manage these resources ourselves to ensure not only food security for ourselves but also maintaining our competitive edge over other western and eastern nations which will become more dependent on Africa for their survival,” said Engelbrecht.
Williams said that it is important that today's youth need to contribute to climate change and the current state of the planet as they are the most promising generation that may provide solutions to these issues and create a better future for those to follow.
“Africa, with all its rich diversity, is uniquely special. Every individual here has to take responsibility for their own contribution to climate change and the state of our planet, so future generations can experience the wonders this planet has to offer,” said Williams.
Weekend Argus