Carbon emission is changing the climate & we are all suffering from it

It was dripping wet. Not that it was raining, it was so hot that everyone on the bus was sweating.

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It was like some alien had infuriated the sun and left the inhabitants of Earth to suffer the consequences. I tried to remember if February was always this hot or if it was just climate change dealing with us all. I turned to the bulky woman sitting close to me, her baby had been fussing since she entered the bus. She tried twice to stuff a feeding bottle filled with milk into his mouth but the boy wasn't to be bribed. He needed some air.

She was wriggling herself now, trying to adjust so he could be positioned toward the entrance of the bus.

“Sorry,” she muttered under her breath as she pushed me with her weight. I gave an apologetic smile and asked her not to worry.

Only the bus driver didn't seem to feel the heat every other person was suffering from because he tuned his radio to a station that played old-school hip-hop and was rapping along with the artiste.

“Ooh if only he would just shut up,” A young man behind me said. I tried hard not to giggle as there was nothing funny. As if the elderly man seated beside the driver heard what had just been said, he raised his voice above the music.

“Oga, you no see say heat dey? Off this music abeg!” He said in pidgin, the Nigerian creole.

The driver gave him a sneer, reduced the volume of the music, and continued singing along.

“But what kind of heat is this sef? Before I reach where I'm going I will be soaked in sweat. Thank God I took a change of shirt” I heard someone say behind me. When I turned, it was the same man that had complained about the loud music.

“I thought we used to have harmattan in this country,” another man was saying, “We barely experienced harmattan for a month before it became unbearably hot…..”

“Even the weather is kicking against the bad government in this country!” Someone interjected. We all laughed at that one. I was tired of craning my neck to see who was saying what so I just listened, only recognizing that the rich baritone behind me was the man who had complained about the loud music the first time and the lighter voice was a man seated next to him.

“The problem with this country,” the elderly man beside the driver began, “is that we do not like ourselves as individuals. In my time as a young man, we used to pick up empty water bottles and take them back to the company so we could be given a couple of naira notes. It was not much, but it was helpful to both us and the society. Now, Carbon emission is changing the climate and we are all suffering from it”

He shook his head and muttered something after speaking. The woman seated next to me shifted uncomfortably again. Her baby was sleeping now.

“But carbon emission is not from water bottles now!” The baritone voice behind me called.

“Ha! Look at this boy!” He cackled. I turned back to look at the man behind me. He was far from the definition of a boy.

“Are you aware that plastic degradation causes carbon emissions? Even the burning of plastic! We should invest in recycling these things since we are fans of plastic and stop littering them in rivers or on the roads. We should not burn them either!” He seemed very angry in my opinion.

If he had so much confidence that this was the cause of the abnormal heat then why didn't he start up a sensitization program? A lot of Nigerians, just like myself, didn't know anything about carbon emissions.

“Driver, I'll stop by the filling station” I alighted from the bus as the rest of the men continued arguing in loud voices, even the driver had turned off his music to join in the argument.

I knew the elderly man was right, but going about picking plastics for recycling wasn't the problem of Nigerians in my opinion. Everyone was angry and hungry and needed the country to get better financially. Except people would be paid in substantial amounts to pick up the plastics of course.

I thought as I boarded a motorcycle home, that we needed a sensitization program on how to stop carbon emissions or reduce it to the barest minimum so that the weather could become more friendly.

In the meantime, I was grateful for the cool breeze that flooded through my body as the motorcycle swept through the street with speed, causing me for the first time since I boarded that bus, to be relaxed.