General News of Sunday, 3 July 2016
Source: Myjoyonline.com
Professor S.G.K. Adiku, University of Ghana, Legon
A lecturer at the Department of Soil Science at the School of Agriculture of the University of Ghana, Legon, has urged policy makers to commit greater zeal and resources to climate protection and stop wailing about climate change.
Professor S.G.K. Adiku is calling for the need for a paradigm shift to sustain the world’s development while still keeping environmental degradation as low as possible.
He was speaking at a one-day workshop on climate change at Ho organised by the E.P. University College (EPUC). The event was attended by about 25 lecturers from various tertiary institutions, media practitioners and the general public in the municipality.
Presenting a paper on ‘From Climate Change to Climate Protection’, Professor Adiku advocated for a new agriculture technology and energy, resource technologies, energy concepts and social lifestyles to protect the Climate.
According to him, the energy use in agriculture accounted about 40 per cent of production cost with a large proportion of it being fossil fuel-based. He pointed out that the burning of fossil fuels, contributed greatly to climate change and that there is the need to find and develop technology that reduced its use.
“We need to find and use alternative energy sources”, Professor Adiku added. In an interview with the President of EPUC, Rev Dr Cyril Fayose said that there have been several calls for collaborations among the research scientists from the tertiary institutions for some time now and was glad that it has begun in earnest in the Volta Region.
Dr Fayose said the phenomena of climate change is a reality and that a major cause of the climate change is the emission of greenhouse gasses, an inevitable consequence of human activity and indiscriminate exploitation of the earth’s resources.
“I heard government officials say that when there are floods in Europe it is as a result of climate change but when there are floods in Ghana it is due to poor planning as if to say that those are not reasons for our predicaments. The phenomena of climate change is a reality whether we like it or not,” Dr Fayose lamented.
Dr Fayose who also chaired the program said that climate change is real and there is enough research to support it.
He said that renewable and environmentally friendly technologies that can sustain development such as the windmill, Parabola dryers, Kenaf for paper production and Ethanol production can help in sustaining development.
He said that effects of climate change are destructive and devastating as a nation.