Climate alarm leads him to take global bicycle trip
The alarm bell is ringing fast in the polar region. Society is far behind science. Society does not understand the urgency of the situation -- how fast the ice is melting in Antarctica.
This is the observation of Daniel Price, a scientist, who recently embarked on a global bicycle trip to raise public awareness about the impacts of climate change.
“As COP 21 is approaching, I decided to pursue a public awareness campaign. So I am cycling from Antarctica to Paris to make people aware about the situation,” he said.
Dr Price completed his PhD at Canterbury, UK last year, focusing on research on techniques to monitor the Antarctic sea ice using satellites.
He talked about his journey titled "Pole to Paris", a 17,000km trip from Antarctica to Paris where the United Nations climate summit will be under way in December.
With the hope that his journey would inspire world leaders to reach an effective and significant agreement to reduce global carbon emissions, the 27 year old British scientist started off from South Pole on April 17 and reached Dhaka on July 11 travelling through Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, Singapore and Thailand on his bicycle.
“When I was in Antarctica I used to think about the vulnerability of Bangladesh. So it is an incredible experience to visit Bangladesh from Antarctica,” he said.
In the last two weeks, Daniel travelled many places of Bangladesh to witness first-hand the effects of climate change and how Bangladesh is adapting to global warming.
After visiting remote areas of Bhola on Wednesday, he sat for an interview with The Daily Star.
He said he visited the coastal district because he was trying to understand the situation on the ground. The only thing protecting those villages in Bhola is a two and half metre embankment, he said. “It is actually worse than what I actually thought.”
Regarding the vulnerability of Bangladesh, Daniel said most people did not have education to understand what was really happening to them and why it was happening. And I do not think the people understand that the human activity in the other part of the world is going to make lives very difficult in Bangladesh, he said.
Describing Bangladeshi people as very hospitable and cordial, the scientist said, "It's like the world's best people are suffering; that makes me upset the most."
When asked about his message to the world after visiting this country, Daniel said Bangladesh was a perfect example of how severely people might get affected by climate change.
According to him, addressing climate change is maybe more of a question of humanity now. "Millions of people will be homeless if the sea level rises further; there is no room for people in this country. Where will those coastal people go if the sea level rises?” he asked.
Sea level rise is a slow process and those people would have to move to either in Dhaka or in Chittagong but there is no room here for those extra people, he said.
"So I would urge the world community, firstly to cut carbon emissions as fast as possible. Because every single day we wait, the faster the problem is going to happen in Bangladesh.
"Secondly, they have to commit significant funding to help Bangladesh because people will be displaced and they have nowhere to go." Regarding the upcoming climate change deal, Dr Price said what happened to Paris would dictate significantly what was going to happen in Bangladesh in the future.
“The only thing missing is political stability. So we need a political statement to support the action which is required.”
Price believes the "Pole to Paris" initiative will inspire leaders to reach an ambitious, binding agreement to address the risks of climate change in the Conference of Parties (COP) 21.
Price and another climate scientist, Erlend Moster Knudsen, who works on Arctic in the North Pole, undertook the bicycle journey.
Knudsen will start off on his bicycle from Norway in early August and will meet Price in Paris in December.
"Climate change is a very slow process. It does not affect the day to day lives of western people. So it is very difficult to engage people in this process," Price said. "So we thought it's a new way to express the story. “As we both are scientists, we have credibility to talk about the climate change issue.” Daniel will fly to China from Dhaka. From there he is expecting to reach Paris on December 5 through Central Asia.
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