Global Warming Caused Nearly 60,000 Farmer Suicides In India Since 1980, When Will The Govt Wake Up?
Farmer suicides in India are on a rise and climate change is also one of the reasons
The issue of farmers' suicide has just been reduced to a data that is referred every now and then but no steps are taken by any government to address it comprehensively. There are a variety of reasons that make the farmers resort to such an extreme step. A recent data has revealed that in the last three decades as many as 60,000 farmers have committed suicide due to global warming.
AFP
According to a research done at University of California, Berkeley in the US, global warming has caused nearly 60,000 farmers suicide in India in last three decades and this rate will rise substantially in decades to come because the global temperature is on a rise.
1-degree increase in temperature takes 65 lives
Researchers found that when a day above 20 degrees Celsius gets one degree hotter during India¡¯s growing season, there are roughly 67 more suicides that day. A temperature rise of five degrees Celsius a day has five times that effect, researchers said.
The California University researcher Tamma Carleton analysed 47 years of suicide records in an attempt to quantify the relationship between climate and surge in suicide among India¡¯s farmers.
AFP
Carleton during her research found that suicide rates increase with the increase in temperature during the growing season.
¡°While some aspects of climate impacts are relatively easy to observe and measure, such as crop yields or national GDP, other key indicators of human well being are much harder to quantify,¡± Carleton told VICE News.
Reuters
¡°Suicide is a heartbreaking indicator of human hardship, and the finding that this phenomenon is affected by a changing climate implies that it is essential to quantify its effect and consider this relationship as we build climate policy for the future.¡±
AFP
Climate change results in crop failure which led to suicide but there are other factors as well which leads to to farmersmmitting suicides.
Climate change leads to increase in suicides in growing season only
Carleton says her research was only to isolate the impact of climate change on the suicide rate and emphasizes that climate change isn¡¯t the only reason behind massive escalations in the rate of farm suicides.
Reuters
"It was both shocking and heartbreaking to see that thousands of people face such bleak conditions that they are driven to harm themselves," said Tamma Carleton, researcher at UC Berkeley.
"But learning that the desperation is economic means that we can do something about this. The right policies could save thousands," Carleton was quoted by PTI.
While high temperatures and low rainfall during the growing season substantially impact annual suicide rates, similar events have no effect on suicide rates during the off-season, when few crops are grown, implicating agriculture as the critical link.
Suicides in toto claim 1.3 lakh lives a year
Carleton¡¯s study which got published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences help explain India¡¯s suicide epidemic which is increasing its grasp with each year. The study says that suicide rates have nearly doubled since 1980 and claim over 130,000 lives in India every year.
Reuters
More than 75 per cent suicide happen in developing countries
The study also found that out of the total number of suicide occurring globally, more than 75 per cent suicide occurs in developing countries and nearly one-fifth of those occur in India alone.
