The night had settled in, the darkness encased the rooftop café, the summer breeze brushed our faces, it was time to go home..
Old red walls, dim yellow lights, wooden railings; the deserted stairway was gasping for a story to be told;
Suddenly everything ceased to exist, only the synchronization of heartbeats, till we found our lips crawling in search of unknown territory;
Your eyes glistened with love as my body pushed yours against the wall, moments overlapped, your odour stifled my senses yet again as my lips brushed against your skin tracing your body like a silhouette, numbness grew around us like creepers as we became oblivious to the knowledge of time..
the dull stairway, was now glowing with an intense hue and as you slipped your fingers between the gaps of mine while we walked down the sidewalk, the orange moon peeping amidst the dry leaves and streetlights, whispered, “You’re home!”
looking out through the window, i kept aside my headphones.. the haze outside waiting to smother my favourite book lying across the bed..
suddenly the heart-rending clouds swept in an epiphany, memories swayed like waves of the ocean and a realization creeped in that I’m nothing more than a mere constellation of tragically forgotten truths..a collection of dreams that were consigned to oblivion..
“Devour me”, i closed my eyes and screamed while a coldplay song gradually started healing all the brokenness within..
a few years back, I met you through my laptop screen..stared at your picture with a mouthful of forevers..
never met you then, yet the stars which peeped through the window every night before I fell asleep were enveloped with teenage pipe-dreams safeguarding our little wishful infinity…
now, the memories are still alive yet, somewhere lost..like the estranged G-talk icon on my desktop, long forgotten to be logged in..
you may curse our damned generation..but, she was the warmth which kept me alive through the winters of my life..
how difficult it is to trust the night sky, at times it brings the irresistible peace amongst mortals yet, obnoxious..
and at times, the aura of the moonlight unleashed a flood of memories and left me gasping for an antidote to escape it..
and there are moments when my cigarette blotted out the raindrops showered upon me..and the smoke imperceptibly faded like the scars you left behind..
and I was only left to wonder if you envied the cigarette fastened between my lips..the same way I envied the darkness which protected you..
yes, you are a darker shade of the night sky outshined by a collection of unknown, real and imagined celestial constellations..
with a ruined mascara she kept sliding fingers across her cellphone screen.. staring at men who failed to love her swept by like tides, one by one..
but I swear, if it were me, I’d shed my skin, my bones, till the very beat of my heart is visible to make you realize how severely I wanted to take the beauty of your soul to my grave..
because, I relentlessly believed that you had madness sprinkled on your bones..but, there was no one daring enough to penetrate into the wilderness..
every night I spent hours to create words that’d let you unearth the hidden magic in you..yet, the amalgamation of ink, paper and cigarette ashes failed to fuel the warmth of your body..
drunk in love, she wished the wormhole he took her to would take them to the world of ‘us’..yet, his kisses were cosmic rays waiting to burn her out inch by inch..
and now, you are just a half smoked cigarette tossed onto the ground amidst the chaos of life, gasping for breath..”
Climate change is already damaging the health of hundreds of millions of people around the world, according to a major new report.
The “Lancet Countdown” study, released by leading medical journal The Lancet, revealed four key ways that climate change is having a serious affect on human health, including heatwaves, the spread of deadly diseases, air pollution, and extreme weather conditions leading to malnutrition.
“The human symptoms of climate change are unequivocal and potentially irreversible — affecting the health of populations around the world today,” according to the report, which is based on 40 indicators of climate and health.
“Climate change is happening and it’s a health issue for millions worldwide,” said Professor Anthony Costello, of the WHO and co-chair of the group behind the report, in a statement.
The research is the result of a collaboration between 24 institutions around the world, including the World Health Organisation (WHO), the World Bank, and the UN’s World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), as well as many universities.
The first of the factors that the report highlights is heatwaves, which are particularly dangerous for the world’s more vulnerable people. One worrying statistic cited in the report revealed that the number of people over 65 who have been exposed to extreme heat rose by 125 million between 2000 and 2016.
“There is no crystal ball gazing here, these are the actual observations,” Professor Peter Cox, at the University of Exeter, told the Guardian . He said the 70,000 deaths that resulted from Europe’s 2003 heatwave looked small compared to what could happen in the long-term.
Meanwhile, the scientists reported that global warming also appears to be accelerating the spread of deadly diseases, such as dengue fever, the world’s most rapidly spreading disease. Infections have doubled in each decade since 1990, and now reach up to 100 million infections a year, according to the Guardian .
Air pollution is another concerning factor, causing millions of early deaths each year. The report particularly highlights the 800,000 annual deaths related solely to coal burning.
Globally, people living in 71% of the 2,971 cities in the WHO’s air pollution database are being exposed to air that is too dangerous to breathe, according to the WHO’s air quality test.
The test concerns fine, sooty particles — known as PM2.5s — which are found in the air, and have been linked to heart disease and early death.
Around the world, exposure to these particles has already increased by 11.2% since 1990. In the UK alone, 44 of the 51 towns and cities in the database failed the air quality test — leading to the deaths of about 40,000 Britons every year, according to Dr Toby Hillman, at the Royal College of Physicians
But perhaps one of the most immediately felt results of climate change is extreme weather, which is damaging crops and leading to the threat of hunger for millions of children. The frequency of weather-related disasters around the world has increased by 46% since 2000.
“Undernutrition is identified as the largest health impact of climate change in the 21st century,” reads the report, stating that the number of undernourished people in 30 countries across Africa and Asia rose to 422 million in 2016 — up from 398 million in 1990.
And Professor Hugh Montgomery, of University College London (UCL), warned that “we are going to see millions more undernourished children” as a result of the loss of crops.
As well as warning about specific factors, the report criticises the slow response by governments around the world, despite previous warnings.
“The delayed response to climate change over the past 25 years has jeopardised human life and livelihoods,” it says, pointing to health crises of recent years as examples of the disastrous effect outbreaks can have on vulnerable populations.
“If governments and the global health community do not learn from the past experiences of HIV/AIDS and the recent outbreaks of Ebola and Zika viruses, another slow response will result in an irreversible and unacceptable cost to human health.”
Since the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) began global efforts to tackle climate change in 1992, most of the indicators tracked by the “Lancet Countdown” have “either shown limited progress…or moved in the wrong direction.”
“Most fundamentally,” the report says, “carbon emissions and global temperatures have continued to increase.”
The total value of economic losses resulting from climate-related events has been increasing since 1990 — totalling $129 billion in 2016, and 99% of these economic losses in low-income countries were uninsured.
This economic loss is partly due to a fall in productivity, caused by adverse weather conditions. Labour productivity among farm workers, for example, fell by 5.3% since between 2000 and 2016, mainly due to hot conditions in nations from India to Brazil.
While the “Lancet Countdown” study didn’t estimate the total number of deaths relating to climate change, the WHO has previously said there could be 250,000 extra deaths a year between 2030 and 2050 because of climate change.
But Costello, one of the authors of the report, said there were “significant glimmers of hope” in the situation, according to a report by Reuters .
“The outlook is challenging, but we still have an opportunity to turn a looming medical emergency into the most significant advance for public health in this century,” he said.
“While progress has been historically slow,” he continued, “there is evidence of a recent turning point, with transitions in sectors that are crucial to public health reorienting towards a low-carbon world”.
He added: “These efforts must be greatly accelerated and sustained in the coming decades to meet the commitments, but recent policy changes and the indicators presented here suggest that the direction of travel is set.”
The Mordi Ibe Foundation campaigns on the Global Goals, which call for robust climate change action.
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