Pending Armageddon

A group of prominent personalities, among them a former Chief of the Defence Staff (CDS) and Christian clerics embarked upon a demonstration in the Eastern Region recently. The action was apolitical and so not much was heard about it.

It was all about the environment's degradation – a subject about which not much has been done to reverse. The capacity of the world to contain its population would be undermined, should our disregard for the environment continue with the level of impunity being exhibited by all of us.

The protest was about the degradation of the environment, something which nonetheless comes close to bad governance anyway. When those at the helm are oblivious of the things which can have disastrous effect on the environment of which ours is but a part of the global landmass – its flora, fauna and weather patterns – the irresponsibility borders on bad governance. That is as far as the demonstration got close to politics.

Concerns for the degradation of the environment through human irresponsibility, has never been taken this high in our part of the world. The demonstration by the prominent personalities was a response to the worst form of environmental degradation to bedevil our country this century.

We therefore reserve plaudits for the gentlemen for their action and pray that all of us – government and the governed – would wake up from our slumber and channel our energies towards reclaiming the lost parts of our environment through world acclaimed environmental best practices.

Someone traveled to the parts of the country worst hit by the degradation of the environment. He surveyed at first-hand the fallouts of illegal mining activities, otherwise known as galamsey, and returned to Accra with a harrowing narration.

The gentleman, although not endowed with academic knowledge about global warming and the sophistication associated with our threatened environment including their effects on the world, was nonetheless able to raise alarm about what he saw.

The pools of water scattered on land which topsoil had long been lost to illegal mining and the brownish colour water of rivers and streams had taken, were enough to automatically press the alarm button about an impending Armageddon.

Illegal gold prospectors march on the land uninhibited – somewhat surveying it for bodies of water for immediate degradation – as they prospect for minerals. For these mineral prospectors every river is fair target for degradation.

President Barak Obama recently launched the most audacious response to the environment degradation facing humanity today. He told Americans and the world at large by inference that ours is the last generation which can do something to reverse the negative trend.

Most Ghanaians consider the issue of environmental pollution as something distant, perhaps belonging to the celestial.

Ironically, such persons are quick to notice the altering weather patterns and their extremities, but too ignorant to identify the factors accounting for these. When the last tree dies the last man on earth perishes.