The two crucial reports on climate change, global warming to be precise, released in February and April this year have amply pointed to the great environmental havoc staring humanity in the face. Both the reports emphatically portrayed a horrid picture awaiting the world. The latest UN-sponsored report was prepared by experts and representatives from over 120 countries on April 6 in Brussels. It was preceded by a similar report thrashed out by 2,500 scientists from 130 countries in Paris on February 2. The catalyst behind both the reports was IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), a UN and World Meteorological Organisation panel. A cautionary statement of the same nature also came out in 2001.

The two reports have revealed some appalling truths by putting in perspective man's reckless treatment of ecosystems over the years. The human wantonness vis-a-vis the use of the gifts of nature, the reports observe, has continued unabated despite warnings from environmental scientists about a looming disaster. Following a five-day discussion at the second meet in April, experts and scientists from around the world in their report were quite blunt about a spine-chilling conclusion: given the present scale of environmental abuse, the planet earth is doomed to meet a cataclysmic end. The first report prepared in Brussels had concluded with the same note of pessimism, pointing an accusing finger at man's imprudence.

To put in a nutshell, the two IPCC reports have squarely blamed man, especially his lack of foresight, for all the environmental hazards. It is mankind, that has been singled out as the main culprit responsible for the weird behavior of nature. Although a third report on global warming, released in Bangkok in the first week of May, offered faint rays of hope by putting the onus on man to come to grips with the increasingly erratic global environment, the prospects are still gloomy. The report's conclusion could be interpreted as a kind of solace against the backdrop of an impending ecological havoc.

However, keeping in view the grim predictions about the earth's environment, there are enough reasons to take heart from the third IPCC report. By owning up to the mindless orgies that have been let loose around the world's climate, we, in the report, have at least mustered the courage to indict ourselves for our suicidal tampering with nature. Following the two highly disturbing portrayals of the present state of the Earth, the Bangkok report provides mankind with a breathing-space for reflections on his past misdeeds and the imperatives for the future. We feel relieved when the report says, humanity could at least 'slow global warming with the prevailing and affordable technology'. The optimism, however, is accompanied by a caveat: time is of essence to ward off the most destructive effects of climate change. The report has also put much emphasis on the political will of governments to battle the environmental calamities.

The frantic search for ways to prevent a looming environmental catastrophe notwithstanding, there are little signs that man is prepared to spare some time to ponder his bleak future. Fossil fuel is used around the world with careless abandon and CFC is being released into the air ceaselessly, thus increasing the volume of greenhouse gas and accelerating ozone depletion. All this is being ended up in a mind-boggling rise in global temperature.

As the second IPCC report of the year says, global warming triggered by human activities will cause species to face extinction, seas to rise, water scarcity to spread and the double whammy of droughts and floods to become more frequent. Besides, one should not be oblivious of the possible collateral impacts of climate change. They include famines, large-scale migration of people, social unrest, violence -- and even war. Being citizens of a least developed and economically trailing country, we in Bangladesh have reasons to feel devastated as the IPCC report singles out the poor countries to be the worst hit in climatic upheavals.

Apart from the regions stretching from Africa to the Pacific islands, the low-lying and coastal areas in South Asia are also set to bear the brunt of climate change at a global scale. Given the massive man-induced turbulence in the Earth's ecology, that has been going on for over five decades, the impacts and the fallout have of late begun to appear with a dreadful vengeance.

Myriads of discourses, talks and deliberations in the recent past have unanimously blamed the rich, developed countries for the present sorry state of the environment, which is precipitating climate change. It is the wastefulness, apathy towards the negative impacts of environmental degradation and a kind of obduracy on the part of these countries that have contributed to the making of their largest share in the great ecological mess.

And they are paying heavily for their hubris. We need not engage in puzzling statistics to show the ecological onslaughts besetting the developed West. A casual survey of the floods in many European countries and the USA, the recurring storms in the American coastal areas as well as occasional heat waves are glaring examples of the great climatic chaos resulting from the excesses indulged by the rich nations.

Ironically, the poor nations too have their share in environmental degradation. Prompted by extreme poverty, many of them denuded their forests to use trees as fuel. Biodiversity is fast disappearing in a number of these otherwise resourceful countries. On the other hand, some of the overpopulated cities in the developing countries have been dubbed virtual storehouses of harmful gases.

When it comes to the global-warming impacts on the poor nations in Asia and Africa, the spectacle seems to be most horrifying. Starting from perennial and long-drawn African droughts to South Asian deluges, droughts, mudslides -- almost all these maladies have their roots in environmental deterioration. To speak caustically, it is purely a man-made climatic catastrophe hastened, to a large extent, by the world's rich nations. It is only in the eighties of the last century that the West realised their follies.

Belated through, they have also begun admitting to their over-uses and, for that matter, abuses of nature's pristine gifts -- which has affected the world's poor.

Things have lately deteriorated to such an extent that every part of the planet Earth is equally taking the wrath of nature. In spite of great distances, crevices in the polar ice, melting of Himalayan glaciers, the under-sea earthquakes leading to tsunamis in Southeast Asia and other ecological aberrations elsewhere appear to be uncannily interlinked. In fact it is reality, grim and stark at that. Likewise, the recurring hurricanes and cyclones in the Pacific, annual flooding and drought spells in southern Asia also add to the spectre of an impending global environmental disaster.

The three IPCC reports on global warming have, in fact, placed a great responsibility on the shoulders of mankind inhabiting the present earth. But for the moment, all the nations, irrespective of economic status, can join hands in putting into reality the reports' recommendations. It is high time we acted. This is the only wise, and pragmatic, way to avert an apocalypse.

Shihab Sarkar is a poet and journalist.