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Last week saw the hottest day of all time for Addis
Abeba, with temperatures reaching up to 32°C during
the middle of the week. Being a highlander myself, I
would be the first to claim that living in a warm
part of the world is much more preferable to living
in the colder parts of it, but the weather
conditions that we have been dealing with this year
have done nothing but support arguments to the
contrary.
Everything has been different from our regular
seasonal habits. This is the Belg season, our
prelude to the real rains for the year, and yet we
have been suffering some of the worst humidity that
I have experienced since being born into this
country. I do not recall humidity being part of our
weather roster during my lifetime. Considering the
lay of the land and that we are floating higher in
the skies than most, this is not the natural kind of
heat to find here. But the humidity would have been
one thing had it not been something that occurred at
the same time as the failing of the regular cycle of
the rains.
Just as the Ethiopian Electric Light and Power
Authority (EEPCo) has been telling us, the rains
have failed to materialize this year. For a rain
dependent agrarian society such as the one that
exists in Ethiopia, this is a seal of death. Maybe
those of us in the urban areas of the land may be
slightly relieved that we do not have to deal with
as much mud and chaos as usual, but this relief is
sure to turn into something far worse when we begin
to hear about the spread and increase of drought,
famine, lack of electricity and running water.
The sad thing is this is not one of those years that
we can just sit back and say that it is the will of
God that things are going this way. This is
something far worse because is it what we have done
ourselves, through our own decisions and actions.
Like every other time that I have used the word, I
am of course talking mainly about the urban
population across the country.
In our rush to join the rat race and be the owners
of shiny new buildings and wider roads, we never
once sat down to consider the environmental
implications of our actions. There has not been a
single building that has come up offering a green
area for the public (incidentally, this can be said
of sufficient parking as well). While plots were
being handed out, environmental impact assessments
were not done, and they are still not done unless is
it for the industrial sector.
At the same time, there have been no significant
improvements or efforts to maintain whatever
remnants of greenery we had left in these areas.
Spaces are being destroyed and jewelled with
architectural monstrosities. And if you have not
seen and felt the effect of the joy of greenery, let
me give you a suggestion on what you should do.
First walk or drive along Africa Avenue at the
height of the afternoon heat. Then slowly head
towards the National Palace until you find yourself
at St. George’s Cathedral, where there is no sheet
glass and plenty of old trees that have been there
for ages. You will literally feel the cleanliness
and coolness of the air in that area.
Businessmen are building sheet glass buildings with
no consideration to which direction they are facing,
with many they are often facing south or southwest
and reflect back, onto already baking asphalt, the
glare of the sun during its worst hours. But you can
not place the blame of a lack of environmental
awareness squarely on the shoulders of those razing
greenery for personal gains. This is an issue that
should have been handled with more consideration and
tact by the government and the responsible public
institutions.
Green areas are a significant part of urban
planning, but all we see in our capital is that
greenery is disappearing and the weather is getting
hotter and hotter by the second. There have been no
major projects focusing on urban planting of
greenery and the possible benefits of added water,
decreased temperatures, increased production and job
opportunities and just overall aesthetic
improvements that come hand in hand with it.
These decisions, which are being made in every major
urban area in the country have now gotten so bad
that the rural areas have also begun to feel the
effects. Drive anywhere outside of the city, in any
direction and you will notice that there are not as
many farms as there used to be and that the
beautiful, lush greenness, that used to be
characteristic of our home, has turned a golden
brown.
I am disappointed to say that our lakes are
disappearing, our water supplies are dwindling,
drought has hit some areas of the country, and our
markets will just feel the hit and make all our
lives harder than they have already become. I think
that the time to be sensible is upon us. We have to
begin caring for the land that has cared for us and
our kind for thousands of years.
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