English Language · English

Read the passage carefully and answer the following question: Global warming is no longer a prediction whispered in academic journals but a drama played out daily across continents. Summers arrive like uninvited emperors, scorching crops before they ripen; glaciers retreat with a silence more eloquent than speeches; and seas nibble at coastlines as though treaties were written in sand, not ink. Satellites count the parts per million of carbon dioxide with precision, but families in drought-hit villages count buckets of water with despair. The irony is stark: factories hum to sustain lifestyles that promise comfort, yet the warmth they release unsettles the very climate that shelters them. Energy grids expand, but so do heatwaves; consumption multiplies, but fertility of soil shrinks. The poorest, who contributed least to the crisis, carry its heaviest burdens, their huts washed away by rains that rivers no longer recognize as seasonal. And still, emissions are justified as the 'cost of progress,' as though progress were measured by tonnes of coal rather than by breaths taken without fear. But resistance is also alive. Farmers experimenting with climate-resilient crops, engineers refining solar panels that sip instead of guzzle, and youth movements demanding accountability all hint at another trajectory. The question is not whether humanity can innovate, but whether it can innovate with humility—seeing the atmosphere not as a dumping ground but as a fragile inheritance. Global warming, then, is not only a scientific equation; it is a moral compass. The thermometer records heat, but conscience must decide how much is tolerable. What is the central theme of the passage?