Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Issues of contemporary India: Environmental degradation-I

I already wrote a small article about soil degradation and Desertification. you can check it out at http://upsctarget.blogspot.in/2014/01/issues-of-contemporary-india.html

Environment or nature is everything that surrounds us. The traditional egocentric approach towards usage of resources has degraded environment to such a level that the plush green forests, which come into our mind when we think of nature do not exist anymore. Environment or nature, what is left of it is among us. We use it every day, for paper, for electricity, our clothes and most of all the basic requirements for our mere existence air, water and food. Every economic structure is based on concept of limited resources and their distribution, but no one care about who is giving those resources. Our nature has a unique ability to recycle certain resources, some are manually recycled and replenished and some are completely exhausted without replacement. hence hampering the natural balance.

Some of the effects of human activity are completely irreversible, because of us many species of plants and animals have been extinct and many more on the verge of extinction. But why should we even care if some species are extinct and the environment we live in is changing(degrading)? If we do care, are we even responsible for it, or is it just the phase of earth's evolution? What is causing it? how can we stop it? What has been done to stop it? what needs to be done are some of the questions faced by people all over the world.

Why should we care?. let us look at Biological cycles like carbon cycle, water cycle, nitrogen cycle and phosphorous cycle. All have one thing in common, they are in harmony, and they have a certain amount of tolerance towards any change. But beyond the tolerance level, the cycles collapse and cause problems to our  very existence. Now are we responsible for it? recently there have been a lot of news about global warming, melting of ice caps and other environmental effects, but are we even responsible for them, or is it just a part of earth's hot and cold cycles. A lot of theories popped up which do suggest that some of it might be earth's transitional effect. But most of the effects are man made, since we are responsible for causing damage to the source of our existence. We need to take up responsibility to stop and undo some of the damage we have caused. "We need to protect the environment so that it can give us protection".

Environmental protection does not just mean, bunch of activists going and hugging a tree in forest to save it. It starts in every house hold with each and every action.  We need to reconsider everything we use in our daily life, consumerism, as such is at question here. The capitalist attitude to promote consumption, people's desire to have more and more babies all are at question. When our existence is at stake especially because of our existence, there is something  inherently wrong and suicidal. There is no limit to our imagination but there is a limit to resources and any over exploitation of these resources is detrimental.

I remember as a kid, I used to believe that everything is possible. I used to think that if i had will and imagination I could be a superhero, maybe I would have like batman at the cost of my body, and perish. With age I understood that there are limits which i cannot break or i should not break. I'm not saying that the youthful me was wrong in any sense, I just say with maturity I understood the tenets of survival. Apply the same to entire human beings, we aspire to defy the laws of nature, we like to get fat while riding our super fast cars, not that there is anything wrong in it (especially when I myself am getting fat) but maybe we as a whole need to understand our surroundings better and start living better.

Next blog I will get into, the ideas which circulate in academic circles to understand the tenets of our survival, some of which came into light. What are organisational efforts taken by India and other International organisations.

Thank you
Shiva :)

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