For the past few weeks, residents of Accra and elsewhere in the country have been witnessing an excessively hot weather. The temperature is usually so high that people have started turning their attention to the topical issue of global warming by posing questions to understand the subject more.
These are people who previously did not bother their heads about the subject anytime they heard about it in the international media.
Even when President John Evans Atta Mills attended an international meeting on the subject, very few Ghanaians took notice of it because of their distance away from it.
Residents in Accra, especially those without air-conditioners, have been complaining continuously about the unusually excessive heat in the nation�s capital, as according to them, not even oscillating fans offer succour to them at night.
Many years ago, the harmattan season was noticeable in Accra. Not so this year, as the season came and passed without any notice. In the northern regions, there has been a fatal outbreak of CSM.
The disease thrives under such excessive temperatures.
These are signs that mankind�s tampering with nature is beginning to take its toll on the order of things on earth.
The Ghana Meteorological Service and the Ministry of Science and Environment have a task to educate all us on how we can contribute towards making Mother Earth a better place to live on.
Global warming is a serious issue worth pondering over by all mankind including Ghanaians.
Although the issue has become controversial, with one school of thought questioning the veracity of the argument that global warming is really an issue, it is our position that there is the need for action on the part of all mankind.
Without delving into the merit or otherwise of the issue, we think that Ghanaians must begin to show interest in what is occupying the minds of distinguished world personalities today, as witnessed in the Kyoto activity and subsequent efforts.
We appreciate the challenges involved in changing attitudes of people towards the environment, especially since the literacy rate in the country is relatively high, but the seriousness of the issue outweighs such a challenge.
It is our take that such programmes are better managed at the school level so that by the time the children grow, they would have been primed with the appropriate knowledge to better manage affairs and to understand the implications of bad management of the environment.
The issue of the environment should be taken more seriously than we have today, because as we already know, natural phenomena such as the weather and the like do not observe international boundary limits.
Mismanagement of the environment in one part of the world can impact negatively on other countries in another continent, as being witnessed today.
It is worrying to observe the changing trends in weather patterns across the world our country not an exception with little or nothing being done by many authorities, in especially the third world countries.
Harmattan, as earlier mentioned, was not noticed this year and we pray that the anomaly does not affect the forthcoming rainy season by exposing us to too much of rain or too little of it.
Such unexpected changes in weather patterns have the tendency to fool farmers to plant too early or too late. Sometimes, even after planting on time, they could be disappointed by an adverse rainfall levels or distribution.
When we take interest in managing our relationship with the environment, we are surely contributing towards a better management of nature and we shall be the losers.
Meanwhile, the hot weather, both day and night, continues with a vengeance unknown in our recent history of the weather.
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