Future is Bright, so We Think

The natural resources to support the world population of more than five billion is depleting faster than a piece of camphor left in the open and so is the resilience of the society.

The Amazon rain forest is vanishing faster than the speed of night and along with them the indigenous tribe of the region. The forest of Amazon, known as Amazonia is called the 'lungs of the earth' as it produces twenty percent of the total oxygen in the world. It is the largest ecosystem on earth.
The constant fight between survival of mankind and its environment is pushing them to extremes. The ever increasing population needs more space, grow more food or build infrastructure so that they can support their livelihood. Illegal mining for the benefit of the money mongers and corrupt politicians is taking a toll on the forests across the globe.

The animals are also not spared. The ecological balance is being destroyed for innate fancies of human beings. The population of tigers in China is a miniscule twenty. Tigers are being raised in Chinese tiger farms to be slaughtered for their pelt, meat and bones. The bones find use in traditional Chinese medicines and aphrodisiacs. Despite a ban by the Chinese government the trade is flourishing and now with the year of the Tiger ushered, the poaching has shifted to Indian forests where there are hardly fourteen hundred tigers left (the figure is again disputed).

The global warming due to excess of carbon emissions is resulting not only in higher temperature but also rising sea level. Based on the projected increases, the IPCC TAR WG II report notes that current and future climate change would be expected to have a number of impacts, particularly on coastal systems. Such impacts may include increased coastal erosion, higher storm-surge flooding, inhibition of primary production processes, more extensive coastal inundation, changes in surface water quality and groundwater characteristics, increased loss of property and coastal habitats, increased flood risk and potential loss of life, loss of nonmonetary cultural resources and values, impacts on agriculture and aquaculture through decline in soil and water quality, and loss of tourism, recreation, and transportation functions.

We are busy fighting to whom Mumbai belongs, but we do not care for the fact that in few hundred years Mumbai, which is an island, would seize to exist. We are fighting for a lost cause and for vested political interests.

The deep sea water fishing (bottom trawling) brings up a whooping 20 million tons of fish from the bottom of the ocean every day. This destroys the entire ecosystem of the ocean. The fishes are not getting enough time to breed and there is depletion in the fish population. Almost quarter of the haul perishes before it reaches the market. The fancy of the Japanese for whale meat has driven the species to near extinction.

The biggest problem that affects us directly is the depletion of the ground water level. This affects not only sustenance of life but also for agriculture. To suck up water from the ground one needs to dig deeper or needs to use more powerful pump, which in turn needs more energy. There is a huge scarcity of potable water. In Sub African countries more than sixty percent of the population does not have access to potable water. Even a modern city like Mumbai has to depend on rain God and on the artificial lakes for their daily source of water. When the rain God plays truant, the taps run dry and the shortage of power is imminent.

In a strategy of sort countries have started buying tracts of farm land and water bodies in Africa or in countries like Brazil. Most of the Middle East countries and China have bought around five to ten percent of farms lands in the African countries like Ethiopia, Niger, Kenya and Mozambique. War is being promoted to reign in instability and for profiteering of some advanced countries.

The facts are known to all of us and we can do nothing but be mere spectators and watch in delusion the slow destruction of the mankind. These are collective follies of our race as we try to outsmart nature, of whose powers we do not have any credible information.

We bring up the next generation by imparting them the best of education or vocational skills but do we have the moral fiber to tell them that they have to go for days without having a bath, or they have to go to a museum to see a stuffed tiger or to an aquarium to see a common Tuna or Sardine or be prepared for the dark days ahead as there will be so much scarcity that only might may prevail over knowledge.

All I wish for is a careful introspection of our consumption pattern. We earn to live a good life but the good life is not restricted to us, our next generation also deserves a bit of that if not the whole.