Mkpoikana Udoma
Port Harcourt — The Health of Mother Earth Foundation has attributed the current climate crisis to the dependence on fossil fuels, while calling on world leaders to end gas flares with resultant emission of toxic chemicals into the atmosphere.
Renowned Environmentalist and Executive Director of HOMEF, Dr Nnimmo Bassey, noted that nature has been resilient and endured several decades of destructive human activities in the extractive industry in search of fossil fuels that emit greenhouse gases which hurt the ecosystem.
Bassey who spoke recently at a virtual forum titled “Conversations with Nature” recommended that diversifying the energy sources and shift away from fossils holds the key to solving the problems of global warming, distorted global ecology amongst others.
“The world has carried on as if there is just one source of energy, beyond fossils there are so many sources of energy that do not destroy natural resources and they are renewables.
“To get out of the climate crisis starring the world in the face we need to switch to renewable energy sources and stop ecologically destructive activities. We need to go back to ‘Eti Uwem’ which stands for the good life in Ibibio language and includes communal and cooperative living as opposed to individualism.
“We need to embrace concepts like ‘Eti Uwem’ which stands for good life in communal space as opposed to individualism.
“From recent developments and lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic, we have come to realise that we are all interconnected and hence the need to reverse the extractive paradigms that destroy natural biodiversity,” Bassey said.
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