Mengapa bahasa Sumeria bisa punah? Seorang ahli geologi mengungkapkan, alasannya adalah kekeringan yang terjadi 4200 tahun lalu dan berlangsung selama 200 tahun.

Kesimpulan itu didapat dari petunjuk tak langsung (karena tak ada bukti tertulis yang menyebutkan bahwa kekeringan memang benar-benar membuat bahasa Sumeria punah). Namun sejumlah bukti arkeologi dan geologi menyebutkan, penurunan peradaban Sumeria secara bertahap disebabkan oleh kekeringan.

Penemuan itu, yang dipaparkan pada Senin (3 Desember) dalam pertemuan tahunan American Geophysical Union, menunjukkan bahwa betapa rentannya kehidupan masyarakat terhadap perubahan iklim, termasuk perubahan yang juga disebabkan oleh manusia.

Prigi Arisandi (born 1976) is an Indonesian biologist and environmentalist. He graduated in biology from the Airlangga University. He was awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize in 2011, for his efforts on reducing industrial pollution of the Surabaya River.

He initiated a local movement to stop industrial pollution from flowing into his city's river that provides drinking water to three million people.

When I was 10 years old, my father would throw me in the river and he would swim with me. It was a very happy time in my life. I could see the stones and the sand, and there were plenty of fish and wild animals. I started to notice the pollution in the early 1980s, a few years after manufacturing facilities and factories were built along the river. The river started to accumulate a layer of pulp and sediment; there was a bad odour, and dead fish would float on top.