When was the last time you saw a hailstone in Ghana? How well can you relate to climate change?

I was having a conversation with a friend who resides in Colorado yesternight on how I’ve heard from students who have been in my school for a while now that the weather seems to have changed. This part of Michigan is mostly cold and snowy but from what people who have resided here enough to know the changing patterns of the seasons say, a lot seems to have changed. From the sun cracking through our windows during lecture sessions to how less it has snowed. She also shared news of how badly it was going to snow in Colorado today which started the conversation of hailstorm and hailstones.

In the Asante dialect, hailstones is called “asukɔtwea” and the last I saw any was when I was about 4 years. It was always a joy when it rained hailstones and we would play in the rain and pick them up and eat them. I’m sure a lot of younger adults today in Ghana have no idea there was a time it rained hailstones and as such have no experience of it.

How terribly the climate has changed! Changed so much that it’s even impacted our social relationships. Recently, I saw a lot of people lamenting about how the sun was scorching terribly back home that you couldn’t even walk a mile without being drenched in sweat. Not so long ago, some people in Keta were displaced due to rising sea levels, air quality keeps reducing and people have had to go back to wearing masks and yet, we find in a lot of elite communities and other neighborhoods, the practice of cutting down trees just to show off our magnificent houses or stores and the paving of our entire compounds defying state regulations that asks that we leave at least 30% of our compounds bare and uncovered. For people in the tropics, we so much love glass home which aren’t sustainable and requires more energy usage through the purchase of ACs and etc, and we find it bourgeois to rather use artificial lawns than grow grass.

A lot of things have really changed. I remember growing up, it was embarrassing to be seen to be eating in plastic bags, we would buy food in our own utensils and calabash, had a backyard farm to the extent that we even had a mini fish pond, a small poultry and piggery to feed on – such sustenance! and we knew nothing about chemical fertilizers because the hens droppings and cow dung did justice to nourishing the earth and our fresh vegetables and meat actually tasted better than they do today. When people barely went to bed on an empty stomach because we had a lot of fruits growing in our compounds and that of our neighbour’s we could pluck and eat, and all the fresh foods particularly the plantain we would normally share with our neighbour’s whose compounds had become homes to the leaves that fell. Who told us these were an uncivilized way of living?

A lot has really changed. Often times, we see the climate change phenomenon as an abstract that’s not so relatable but perhaps, if we start reminiscing on what has changed so much in the environment and our ecosystem, from June-July no longer being the wettest months of the year, to harmatan sometimes playing tricks on us in December, to how the quality of air has reduced as we continue to cut down trees and show off our beautiful homes, to how we no more experience hailstones.

Indeed, you and I can attest to the fact that a lot have changed and these changes have deprived the younger generation a lot that we enjoyed! But all hope isn’t lost because we can actually do better through deliberate climate action.

What are some of the noticeable changes in your country or environment and how deliberate have you been in contributing to a sustainable future?

Let’s have a conversation.

#ClimateChange #ClimateEducation #BuildingResilienceTogether