What should be the way to deal with seasonal challenges

It has not been long since Delhi and many other cities of the country were going through severe heat. Now many of these cities have received heavy rainfall in a very short time. In Delhi, the record of 'maximum daily rainfall' of the last 88 years was broken in June. Due to so much rain in a few hours, many roads were submerged in water and traffic jams persisted for hours in many areas. In the last few years, the weather in Chennai, Rajasthan, Bengaluru, Sikkim has been surprising. This year, when the number of deaths due to severe heat increased and ACs started bursting in homes, climate change became a topic of discussion in the WhatsApp groups of people living in high-rise buildings and housing societies of Delhi-NCR and there was a discussion on planting more and more trees there. That is, the climate change which they considered a topic of debate in newspapers and some global forums, started affecting their lives.

Record breaking rains in a very short time after extreme heat and water crisis, all this is explained by Harini Nagendra and Seema Mundoli in their book 'Shades of Blue'. In the book, they have analyzed the water problem in many cities of the country. This book emphasizes the same old belief, which has been discussed earlier. The thinking is that if cities have to be saved from water problem, then their wetlands have to be saved. Actually, due to uncontrolled urbanization, wetlands in cities are decreasing, which is leading to conditions like drought in summer and floods in rainy season.

This book is written about the relationship between water and cities. It was not long ago that there was a shortage of water in the posh areas of Bangalore and during that time the city was also fed up with the heat. Bangalore is known as a city where the weather is good. This incident reminded us of the relationship between water and humans. In our sister newspaper Times of India, Mahesh Rangarajan, Professor of History and Environmental Studies at Ashoka University, has also mentioned this book in a conversation with the newspaper. He says that if we want to avoid climate disasters, then we have to learn from climate history. We have to stop tampering with nature and respect it. In the context of this climate history, he has mentioned the wonderful work done in 'Shades of Blue'.

This book takes the readers on a tour of many important places. It mentions the work done by Arthur Cotton in the Krishna-Godavari delta and also the Bhakra-Nangal dam, which was part of the country's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru's dream of modern India. The book tells that before starting work on any water-related project, it should be seen what its impact will be in the long term. Then it is also a well-known fact that water or weather-related disasters have the worst effect on the poor. Therefore, while making plans related to weather-related challenges, it has to be kept in mind that the poor also get relief from it. For example, due to increasing heat, the work of those people who work in the open is more affected. These people are also more likely to lose their lives. If we have to find answers to weather-related challenges, then we will have to look at the climate history, about which this book tells us.