limatologist say that "Our earth is heating up. The thick blanket of air around us, called atmosphere is warming up at alarming rate." It may seem hard to believe that people can change the Earth's climate but man's activities have disrupted Nature's age-old process,
including climate change.

Scientists think that a lot of things that people send green house gases into the air making our planet warmer. The green house gases include water vapour, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, ozone, etc. The concentration of green house gases is steadily increasing
due to cumulative effect of deforestation and excessive burning of fuels.

Concentration of carbon dioxide is increasing at the rate of 1ppm by volume per year, which is about 9 billion tons. The unusual increase in concentration of carbon dioxide and other green house gases, raising the global temperature, is the prime cause of climate change.
This change will impact every thing from food and water, security to national and business interests.

Rising global temperatures also invites a growing risk that the climate will change in ways that will seriously disrupt all forms of life on the planet. For India, we can expect coastal flooding along India's 7,000 km long coast, which will destroy all coastal fresh water aquifers
and the nearby agricultural land.

Fast melting Himalayan glaciers and snowfields, which today provide India 85% of its dry season river flow, will contribute only 30% of this level by 2050. Reduced river flow will affect hydropower generation, and India would have to face vast energy crisis in future.

According to UN's Food and Agricultural Organization, in India, above 60% of the total population are engaged in agriculture. A vast majority of them are low-income farmers, who depend on rainfall and ground water for a successful harvest. Due to rising global temperature, erratic rainfall, falling ground-water levels and drought would result in agricultural crisis and destruction of more than 20% of India's food stock.

WHO has warned that there will be a greater potential for heat related illnesses and deaths, as well as wider spread of infectious diseases carried by insects and rodents. Malaria, cholera and dengue may become more virulent and widespread.

Economic loss due to temperature rise is estimated between 9 to 25% and GDP loss may be of 0.67%. Increasing inflation rate is one of the consequences of global warning.

This is India's worst-case scenario with respect to climate change and thus a high- time to act against climate change. This may be a big problem, but there are many little things we can do on our part to reduce the amount of green house gases. We can act to reduce consumer demand for heavily polluting goods and services. We can reduce our consumption of fossil fuels, use technologies that reduce the amount of carbon emissions, save electricity, protect the world's forest and promoting plantation. Think now and act now, before climate change becomes a national threat.