3.5 billion years after the first life appeared on Earth, mother nature must be vexed at the process of evolution that created a tawdry product, the humans. Since homo sapiens came into being, the species has been rapacious and mercenary in character. With the advent of cognitive ability, humans have always used mother nature for a better, enhanced life. This aspect of self-betterment has downgraded anything beyond humans. Moreover, the irony is that, World Earth Day today, April 22 is celebrated by humans for their own misdeeds made in a bid for for a better future. Humans have teetered in the path of saving mother nature, and they continue to do so.
The first report of IPCC had highlighted that we will be in deep trouble in 40 years to come, and there we are. The 6th Assessment Report of IPCC attributed extreme weather events to climate change. The simple lackadaisical approach “Let it happen then we will see what to do” has brought us here. Human settlements near water resources like lakes and rivers face the threat of climate change and sea level rise. Beyond any doubt the losses and damages will be concentrated amongst this poor group of population. With the temperature increase happening unimpeded, we will be left with lesser sets of options to dodge the situation. In Goa and other states alike the effects of climate change is glaring at us in the face: high humidity had led to higher temperatures over the past decade. People flock to buy air conditioners, thus putting an immense load on power infrastructure, ultimately leading to burning of more coal that promotes emission of greenhouse gases, causing heat entrapment. The cycle is self-sustaining. Ignorance is the culprit.
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Conducting meetings, discussing climate in cozy cool indoors, quenching thirst by drinking water in disposable plastic cups, devouring food in plastic cutlery, commuting in fuel-guzzling machines are some of the traits of humans. It is well-known that climate change will have a skewed effect on the poor and downtrodden who cannot afford to protect themselves in this high inflation world.
The implementation of the measures adopted to save mother nature at the highest inter-governmental levels get diluted and adulterated in the web of bureaucratic red-tapism. I would argue that these measures are not to save mother nature, but to save ‘us’, humans. We are just feigning to save nature.
Immense poaching pressures have pushed many animals in the wild habitats to extinction, and we are probably witnessing mass extinctions that have previously happened in the geologic past several times. But this time it is unique. Humans have themselves inflicted this injury. Several studies are teeming with facts of dying plant and animal species. Since humans have taken these threats of nature (climate change) ‘personally’, the human species is scrambling to survive. In the annals of nature, this must be a very unprecedented phenomenon, and if mother Earth is biologically active according to the author James Lovelock (Book: The Revenge of Gaia), it must be tee-heeing at the cinema unfolding over the past years.
