“The biggest threat to humanity is global warming and not terrorism as climate change can wipe out lakhs of people in one go,” said well-known economist and faculty member at Oxford Brookes University in London, Dr Pritam Singh, who was the keynote speaker at the state-level World Environment Day celebrations organised by Punjab Pollution Control Board (PPCB) on Friday.

Dr Singh said, “Governments the world over are pumping in crores of rupees to combat terrorism. All this funding should actually go towards slowing down climate changes that can affect large number of people by means of flash floods, diseases and massive human displacement.”

Slamming economic policies, Dr Singh said, “Present-day polices are simply concentrated on how to produce more and consume more. It is this blind drive to raise more profits which is leading to the exploitation of natural resources.”

Outlining the impact of global warming, PPCB Chairman Yogesh Goel who was also the chief guest at the event, said: “People will have to face severe food scarcity in case global warming is not arrested in time. Nations and cities located on seashores will submerge, while huge floods will destroy other nations. Massive human movement for safer lands will increase pressure on nations that will only lead to more unrest.”

The Board also honoured Baba Sewa Singh of Kar Sewa Khadoor Sahib for undertaking a plantation drive under which trees were planted on both sides of a 150-kilometer road stretch and orchards on over 500 acres.

A civil society group - Media Artists - presented a musical programme and a play. Students of DAV School also staged a ten-minute skit on the importance of trees. The Board also released two books - Kudrat te Gurbani authoured by Charanjit Singh and Gurdip Singh Sandhu and A treatise on Environmental Issues edited by Malwinder Singh. A report on pollution during Diwali was also released. Others who used the platform to voice their concerns included S S Dhillon, former head of Zoology department, Punjabi University, Sushil Mittal, Dean Thapar University, M L Garg, advisor RJL University and Dr A S Reddy, faculty member at Thapar University.