Noted environmentalist and Nobel Laureate RK Pachauri on Wednesday called upon youths to come forward to save the environment.
Delivering a lecture on "Climate Change - Impacts and Adaptation" at Himachal Pradesh University here, Pachauri said checking environmental degradation was vital for ecological health of the country. He said there should be a balance between the human being and the nature.
Pachauri said "continued emissions of greenhouse gases would cause further warming and changes in the climate system, oceans would continue to warm during the 21st century and it is likely that the Arctic sea ice cover will continue to shrink and Global sea level will continue to rise".
He further cautioned that the length, frequency or intensity of warm spells or heat waves will increase over most land areas and a 1-in-20 year hottest day is likely to become a 1-in-2 year event in most regions.
"It is also likely that the frequency of heavy precipitation or the proportion of total rainfall from heavy falls will increase over many areas of the globe," he added.
Highlighting the high risk of large magnitudes of climate change, Pachauri said "evergreen conifers could invade deciduous larch forest, large changes may also occur in arid and semiarid areas and the rates of vegetation change in the more densely populated parts of Asia could be reduced by the impact of habitat fragmentation on seed dispersal".
Later Pachauri presented a book to Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh titled 'Gandhi and Environment'.
The Chief Minister said that Himachal had a treasure of herbs and medicinal plants and such a move would certainly improve the monetary status of the people and provision would be made for suitable marketing of the produce.
Singh urged Pachauri to give his valuable inputs for setting up a planetarium at Anandpur near Shogi in district Shimla which was being set up by the department of Science, Technology and Environment.
Pachauri was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Science and PhD degree by vice chancellor ADN Bajpai on the occasion.
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