Climate change: Shehri urges engineers to do more when disasters strike

Environment secretary fends off complaints from audience.

KARACHI: “The aim is not to point fingers at the government or portray them as the wrong doers,” said Engineer Roland deSouza on Monday. “Rather we have to look at what we are doing to help them out.”

DeSouza was presenting at an event organised by the NGO Shehri at the Institution of Engineers Pakistan (IEP). The guests mostly included engineers and architects, who came together to speak about their contribution to environment and what can be done to protect it.

DeSouza said that around 50,000 members of the IEP did not gear up to help the nation. “Rather, we have forced our people to resort to beggary and wait for alms sent by foreign delegates. This undermines the work and expertise of our own people.”

During his presentation, deSouza spoke about the major concerns keeping the population up at night. “Environment is mostly thought to be related to trees and parks and keeping our homes clean, but there is more to it than that. It is life itself and we humans are a huge part of it,” he said.

Speaking about the role of engineers in the recent disasters in Pakistan, deSouza felt that there was no one who could stand up and take responsibility for what happened. There are many laws regarding environment but even today, their implementation remain a big question mark.

Mir Hussain Ali, secretary of the environment and alternative energy department, came under fire for the complacent role of the authorities. Ali defended himself by referring to the recent commotion over the construction of a building near the Karachi Grammar School. “We tried our best to make sure that the construction does not take place,” he said, to which a lady in the audience retorted that if it were not for the protest organised by the people, nothing would have been done at all.

On a question about climate change, deSouza and Ali had different answers. The former was of the opinion that 50 per cent of damage caused by climate change cab be attributed to digging out water from the ground. Ali, however, insisted that it has a lot to do with the position of the continents and their moving apart gradually, which causes climate change.

As the audience wanted a better answer from the panelists, a senior retired engineer answered on their behalf and said that Pakistan has a very small role to play in climate change but it will have to “accommodate itself” with the changing times.

For instance, it has to get used to rising temperatures and a gradual scarcity of food. “These are man-made problems and until and unless we look at the way we have been wasting our resources and find a balance, these problems will keep on staring us in the face,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 4^th, 2011.