The Only Green Planet From Our Galaxy Cries For Help Now!
Everyday we hear about some increasing news about global warming and climate change and their negative effects. Almost every day media agencies and different profile organizations all over the world come with various alarming information on the dangers and harm global warming does for the environment of our planet. Almost every day we hear (and perhaps witness too) about some new evidence on that: unprecedented weather conditions and unexplored ways of climate deviations, terrible cataclysms that take place on all continents of the globe etc.
Having all this information about climate change 'floating' in the air on all meridians of the earth it is not difficult to figure out that something is wrong with our planet and that we – as humans - are facing a serious common problem: a growing global warming that is severely affecting us negatively in all senses.
Now, someone coming from a small agrarian country might say: “you know, the environmental problem is a mere speculation, a myth that nobody wants to believe anymore; in our country we do not have this problem and will never have it because we do not harm the environment”. Well, this is definitely somebody's right to think so, and we take that perspective as being probable. However, once we assume to have split opinions about the environmental problem there is at least one question we need to clarify: What evidence do we have while making our points?
I say that nowadays the environmental issue is a major problem for ALL modern societies regardless their type of economy and/or proximity to those countries that attest world’s largest pollution for the environment. That is a fact that finds easily evidence even there where nobody wouldn’t have thought before…
Moldova – A Lost Paradise?
The Republic of Moldova is and has always been an agrarian country. Bordered by Ukraine to the east and by Romania to the west Moldova looks like a cluster of grapes on the map. As a part of the Soviet Union, Moldova was famous for its prosperous agrarian sector fact for which Moldova is still being named among CIS countries as “the flourishing Moldova”.
Ivan Mardari is a 44 year-old farmer from a southern region of Moldova called Ciadir-Lunga who has been involved heavily in agriculture for 14 years now. He owns 1050 hectares of land on which he grows fruit and field crops such as wheat, corn, peas, sunflower etc. Ivan was educated in a family with strong farming tradition fact that confers him a certain authority and respect among local farmers. He has been born in Moldova when this country was still known as being flourishing and prosperous. Those times nobody talked about global warming and climate changes…And even if somebody did who cared? A couple of decades later Moldovan farmers suddenly started to look at this issue with a different attitude…
When I kindly asked Ivan Mardari to share his opinion about global warming and climate change in Moldova he offered a much more complex answer than I initially had expected. The points he raised and the arguments he made proved that he knew a great deal about global warming and its consequences on both local and regional levels, and especially its negative impact on his annual crops.
Mr. Mardari remembers well that some 14 years ago it was significantly easier for him and his colleagues to perform farming entrepreneurship. And that is not because of the different economical or political circumstances, but first of all because of the weather conditions which were more stable and more predictable than now.
Here we have an example. If a decade ago local farmers assumed as a rule the fact that every 5th year must be followed by a draught, nowadays the farmers assume that out of 3-4 years only one is favorable for normal agricultural activity. In the most recent years there has been noticed a number of hardly understandable weather changes. First of all Mr. Mardari says that at this time being in Moldova there is hardly any spring season; the transition period from winter to summer recently became very short fact that reflects negatively on South Moldova flora and subsequently on the local agricultural sector.
For example, the year of 2010 attested a very long and cold winter. Under these conditions the farmers had to wait too long for appropriate conditions necessary for field works. And when finally those conditions appeared the temperature has suddenly escaladated beyond normal. As a consequence the land dried too fast and the seeding process became almost impossible. Moreover, only at the beginning of July 2010 the temperature reached +38C in shadow (much more beyond the normal temperature for this period of the season) thing that affected badly some sorts of plants and trees.
The year of 2009 was extremely dry and rainless. All field crops were so poor that the farmers could not even cover their initial investment. The year of 2008 proved to be less dry, but instead there were registered great temperature differences between day and night. In May this difference was catastrophic for the crops (+18/20 during the day and +3/5 during the night), many plants got sick and because of the infection the crop was extremely minimal.
In 2007 the temperatures maintained warm for the whole period of winter, fact which lead to early flourishing/flowering. The bad thing was that in March a very cold winter cyclone crossed Moldova destroying in several days most of the early and mid-summer harvest.
According Mr. Ivan Mardari global warming is an everyday reality for him and his colleagues as well. He says “IT’s moving slowly but firmly to the worse each year”.
He, as well as many others know that statistics together with raw fact cannot promise too much for the future, but he chooses to believe and hope that farming is still a good and noble way to make one’s existence. These people know that because of the climate changes the weather forecasts and predictions are powerless when protecting their crops. The sad experiences they have all passed through lead all of them to one simple realization: they all have a problem to solve. A serious one! This problem is the consequences of Global warming in the way it’s been sensed in Moldova.
Of course that on our side of the TV screen or on our newspaper page this problem might look important, but not urgent. Nevertheless, what we are trying to make an argument for is that the problem is not only important, but also urgent and requires immediate intervention. First of all, from the individual and then from the corporative agencies and state institutions. And that should work, if taken seriously and with the rights attitude!!!
We know that media agencies do their job well while informing us every day about global warming and its eminent dangers. Now it’s our turn to do our part of the job and save our planet through urgent and permanent measures in that direction.
Did you know that Terra is the only green planet from our galaxy and perhaps from the whole Universe? Our planet is priceless treasure. Let us not lose it!
-Erica Ceka