When Mr. Phillips assigned this project, I had no idea what I wanted to write about. I knew I wanted to choose a topic related to climate change, an issue that I have been fascinated with since learning about it in the fourth grade, but I was puzzled as to what this topic would be and which country I would select. I thought about this for several days, hoping that “sleeping on it” would remedy the problem. Finally, the day before our research questions were due, my wish was granted; I remembered the stories that my father, who is employed at a company with a location in India, told me about the nation. Although my father was never required to travel to India on business trips, many of his co-workers had to do this, and they came back with tales about the country: the extreme heat and drought during the dry season, the catastrophic flooding of monsoons when they visited during the rainy season, and the incredibly high amount of malnourished people. I wondered if these issues were the result of climate change, so I researched this and determined that climate change has, in fact, resulted in the already extreme weather natural to this part of the world becoming more severe. After discovering this, I decided to write my essay on this topic.
Before conducting any in-depth research, I needed to determine a research question. Because I knew that the extreme weather has resulted in many deaths in the region, and I had prior knowledge about the rising malnutrition rate, I believed that climate change would primarily impact the physical health of India’s citizens. I decided to model my question after this notion. I thought I would find a large amount of articles on the deaths from the recent heatwaves and flooding, however, when I began researching, this did not occur. Although I did find several articles about the impact of the extreme weather on India’s citizens, I primarily found articles dealing with the rising suicide rate in the nation. I found that farmers felt responsible for their poor harvests resulting from the increasingly severe droughts, and they became depressed, looking to suicide to escape their debt and shame. This was shocking to me; I had no idea that the effects of climate change were so far-reaching that they not only adversely affected the physical health of India’s citizens but also their mental health. After learning this, I expanded my thesis to include both the physical and mental impacts of climate change.
While researching, I encountered some difficulties. One such difficulty was that I struggled to find information about malnutrition in India. Most of the articles I read just discussed that the instance of malnutrition was rising; they did not explain why this occurred or how climate change was contributing to the increasing malnutrition rate. Finally, after refining my search nearly a dozen times, I found an article that I could incorporate into my essay. It detailed a drought that occurred in an Indian village and the deaths that resulted from malnutrition. I also faced another obstacle while researching. Although I found an abundance of sources dealing with the increasing suicide rate in India, many of these sources mainly discussed the economic impact of the deaths of the farmers instead of focusing on why they committed suicide and how climate change contributed to this. I finally found several articles on this, but I was disheartened to discover that people are more focused on the fact that climate change will disrupt the economy than how farmers and their families are impacted by this issue.
Although there have not been any new developments on the negative impacts of climate change on the mental and physical health of people in India, India’s citizens have recently invented new and creative ways in attempt to combat the issue. According to The Washington Post, residents of India familiar with weather forecasting, although not meteorologists, have started blogs in which they predict the weather in various Indian villages. These forecasts are more accurate than the “sweeping and inexact” predictions made by official meteorologists (Doshi). This will hopefully allow Indian citizens to prepare for extreme weather well before it arrives, helping to limit the death and destruction to crops and humans resulting from climate change. Even so, much more still needs to be done to combat climate change in India.
Before conducting any in-depth research, I needed to determine a research question. Because I knew that the extreme weather has resulted in many deaths in the region, and I had prior knowledge about the rising malnutrition rate, I believed that climate change would primarily impact the physical health of India’s citizens. I decided to model my question after this notion. I thought I would find a large amount of articles on the deaths from the recent heatwaves and flooding, however, when I began researching, this did not occur. Although I did find several articles about the impact of the extreme weather on India’s citizens, I primarily found articles dealing with the rising suicide rate in the nation. I found that farmers felt responsible for their poor harvests resulting from the increasingly severe droughts, and they became depressed, looking to suicide to escape their debt and shame. This was shocking to me; I had no idea that the effects of climate change were so far-reaching that they not only adversely affected the physical health of India’s citizens but also their mental health. After learning this, I expanded my thesis to include both the physical and mental impacts of climate change.
While researching, I encountered some difficulties. One such difficulty was that I struggled to find information about malnutrition in India. Most of the articles I read just discussed that the instance of malnutrition was rising; they did not explain why this occurred or how climate change was contributing to the increasing malnutrition rate. Finally, after refining my search nearly a dozen times, I found an article that I could incorporate into my essay. It detailed a drought that occurred in an Indian village and the deaths that resulted from malnutrition. I also faced another obstacle while researching. Although I found an abundance of sources dealing with the increasing suicide rate in India, many of these sources mainly discussed the economic impact of the deaths of the farmers instead of focusing on why they committed suicide and how climate change contributed to this. I finally found several articles on this, but I was disheartened to discover that people are more focused on the fact that climate change will disrupt the economy than how farmers and their families are impacted by this issue.
Although there have not been any new developments on the negative impacts of climate change on the mental and physical health of people in India, India’s citizens have recently invented new and creative ways in attempt to combat the issue. According to The Washington Post, residents of India familiar with weather forecasting, although not meteorologists, have started blogs in which they predict the weather in various Indian villages. These forecasts are more accurate than the “sweeping and inexact” predictions made by official meteorologists (Doshi). This will hopefully allow Indian citizens to prepare for extreme weather well before it arrives, helping to limit the death and destruction to crops and humans resulting from climate change. Even so, much more still needs to be done to combat climate change in India.
Work Cited
Doshi, Vidhi. “How Amateur Weathermen are Tackling Climate Change in India.” The Washington Post, The Washington Post, 24 Dec. 2017,
www.washingtonpost.com/. Accessed 7 Jan. 2018.
Header borrowed from "Western Heights" https://www.westernheights.in/blog/environmental-issues-of-mumbai.html