As we celebrate The World Environment Day on 5th June, we must first ask ourselves what is meant by environment.
In what way and how are we related to
it or it to us?
Are we part of it or is it part of
us?
Why does it require a special
attention?
Is it an issue or a problem or a very
intrinsic part of our life?
And many more such questions arise.
Special days are normally observed to
celebrate, to commemorate, to commercialize, to carry out rituals, to call
attention to express concern for victims and victors, to cater to express our
relationship to specific feelings, persons, issues, problem and so on.
Unfortunately, of lately whenever the
word ‘environment’ is mentioned the following collocations are carried like
joeys of a flyer [female kangaroo]:-issues, problem, concern, degradation, biodiversity,
sustainable growth etc. why?
Are these trends, the result of our
perceptions going through prism of preconceptions with which we see nature?
Or are these the result of real
damage to human and environment relationship? Or are these a manifestation of
concerned caution or candid confessions or hyper reactions?
It may be the result of all the above
or any of the above.
Though for all of us, at least, the
word ‘environment’ denotes either the whole or some aspect of nature.
Ronald Harvey in his book ‘Our
Fragmented World’ writes, “The influence of environment begins long before
birth. It begins at the beginning, with our genes. Genes do not exist in vacuo.
They are part of their environment as we are to our world. They are as it were
‘sewn into’ their environment as we are to ours. No organism ever develops
without an environment. It is not inheritance per se but the interaction
between inheritance and environment where the responsibility must be placed”.
“So, our world and ourselves are one, we and our world form part of an organic
whole”
So, environment is not an issue it is
part of our tissue.
It is not a problem but a magnified
emblem of elements of which the whole biochemical organism of human body lives.
If we etymologically trace the word
to its remotest origin it is from the Old French ‘en’[in]+‘Viron [circle]
i.e. things that “environ” us, that encircle or surround us. So originally
the whole of nature before human species made different enclosures.
So, it is human nature to look up to
nature but humane culture to look after nature. Slogans appeal to everyone than
sermons or scientific facts.
In the course of evolution,
everything and everyone interacted either consciously or otherwise either with
or without the awareness that everything and everyone are interconnected.
Vagaries of nature and vicissitudes of human life have both contributed to
changes to the environment.
Ancient traditions wonder at nature;
some religions worshiped nature; civilization made man work and use it for his
comforts; modern technological and economic advancement excessively use it.
In the process of evolution human
beings realized that while mentally mighty they were physically weak so to live
acclimatizing in naked nature was becoming difficult. Therefore, he started
using the natural resources for his shelter, security, comfort etc.
Human population explosion and the
concomitant need and greed made him over use nature and this has led to an
imbalance in the relationship between humans and environment. This must be and
can be rectified by various means or when everything else fails nature takes
care.
At the same time resorting to
extremism like objecting to every human, or economic growth related activity in
the name of environment protection is hypocritical because those who protest
must stop using paper, stop living inside houses, stop cooking, stop using any
gadget, stop plucking vegetables and fruits as all these also are uses of
natural resources; stop talking because that harms many tiny microbes.
We must realize human species has to
be in a perennial relationship with the whole of environment. So, instead of
advocating a late divorce or ill treatment we must adopt the best possible
means of improving our relationship with nature.
Hysteric reactions can never set
right any historic blunders.
We all must realize that our
relationship with the environment matter more than anything else especially in
an era when there are ready made justifications available on the net for
all types of actions, reactions and inactions.
René Jules
Dubos a French-born American microbiologist, in one of his interviews said
long back how a single man in the arid lands of Midi of France used to plant
some trees every day and that has become a big forest. Incidentally his book ‘A
God within” portrays many probable positive values in man's relation to
nature and offers many simple solutions to enhance such a relationship.
Recently in India, Jadav
"Molai" Payeng (Assamese born in 1963), a Mishing tribe environmental
activist and forestry worker from Jorhat, India, planted and tended trees on a
sandbar of the river Brahmaputra over several decades and literally created a
forest reserve, called Molai forest after him and is located near
Kokilamukh of Jorhat, Assam, India and encompasses an area of about 1,360 acres
/ 550 hectares and this year [in 2015] he was honoured with Padma Shri, the
fourth highest civilian award in India.
Jaggi Vasudev’s Isha Foundation
makes huge and significant contributions to preserving forests and environment.
I reproduce this piece from an
article I wrote in the early 90s as to why and how God created Hell.
“In the beginning God created heaven
and earth. Quickly god faced a class action suit for failure to file an
environmental impact statement. God was granted a temporary permit for the
project, but was stymid with cease and desist order for the earthly part. Then
God said let there be light’ immediately the official s demanded to know how
the light would be created. Would there be strip mining? What about thermal
pollution? God explained that the light would come from a large ball of fire
.God was granted provisional permission to make light on the condition that no
smoke would result from the ball of fire and that he would obtain
building and conserve energy. He would have the light out half the time.
God agreed and offered to call the light day and darkness night. The god said
let the earth put forth vegetation, plant the yielding seeds and fruit trees.
The environmental protection agency agreed so long only as native seeds were
used. Then god said let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and
let birds fly above the earth. The official pointed out that this would require
approval from the department of game coordinated with heavenly wildlife
federation. Everything was fine until god said the project would be completed
in six days. The officials said that it would take at least 200 days to review
the applications and the impact assessment. After that there would be public
hearing, then there would be 10 to 12 months before… at this point God created
hell.”
UNIVERSAL DECLARATION of
the RIGHTS of POSTERITY
Which was drafted by the UK council
for posterity initially by a gentleman called Professor Scorer and a group of
other concerned people like ecologist Herbie Girardet, Tanya Schwarz of the
Forest Peoples’ Support Group, Guy Dauncey environmental consultant and Nicolas
Albery of the Institute of Social Inventions.
UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF THE RIGHTS
OF POSTERITY
(DRAFT, JULY 1989)
Whereas our descendants’ generations,
although likely to prove far more numerous than ourselves, have no voice or
vote in any of our political systems, we therefore declare that all the
generations yet to come, for as far into the future as human life survives on
this planet, are entitled by natural justice to the following rights, which
those alive today have a duty to respect and uphold:
1. The right to inherit a planet that
has been treated by its human occupants with the utmost respect. And more
particularly:
2. The right to inherit a planet with
oceans, lakes and atmosphere undamaged by human activity, with safeguards for
planet’s climate, such as rainforests, still intact.
3. The right to inherit a planet with
an undiminished diversity of species.
4. The right to inherit adequately
maintained reserves of fossil fuel and other mineral resources.
5. The right to be born into world of
human-scale societies, unravaged by population excess.
6. The right to inherit a world
unmarred by nuclear or chemical wars, incidents or wastes.
7. The right to expect that previous
generations will have cleaned up their pollution, repaired their
damaged environments, on land, sea and in the air (including outer space), and
protected places of natural beauty.
8. The right to inherit political,
legal, technological and social systems that respect individual human dignity,
such as those laid out in the UN Declaration of Human Rights.
9. The right to inherit the full
uncensored cultural heritage bequeathed by former generations, as expressed,
for instance, in their art, history, literature, libraries and museums.
10.The right of future generations to
have their interests considered and, where appropriate, represented by a
competent advocate, in any present day tribunal or assembly that is deciding
courses of action that might have harmful log-term consequences.
World Environment Day.
As early as from the late 90s, being a person ( non professional and as a mere admirer of nature and its various creations) interested in the overall environment when I started coming across certain disturbing adverse literature out of both sheer curiosity as well as worry that what if the claims of activists come true , then we, as collective human species, would have to squirm in guilt and shame for having destroyed a major part of our life.
This made me seek and read articles from every possible source ( in those days , of course no internet, access to domain specific articles, one had to literally, hunt in the libraries- even that is possible only in cities).
In it was precisely, in 80s lot of articles emerged on scarring humanity, views and counter views on GMOs.
While the domain experts had strong opinions, what managed to get into common man's sources like the usual narratives in news papers and magazines ( all with the tinge of multiple hidden agendas). While those who never bothered about these issues were living in blissful ignorance, the mass opinion molders, as usual, had a field day doting out varying degrees of ignorance with newly coined jargons ( which had a tinge of assumed elitism among the journalists circles) and avid information seekers with interest like me were tossed around reading very strong views on both extremes of the issues and ended up just more confused than having any clarity.
As usual we had ambivalent approach rather than firm knowledge.
Then, gradually, as the calendar meandered from late 80s into the 90s one could see, these much debated issues were inevitable aspects of evolutionary trends or exigencies or both. With growing human population, accelerated economic growth and the necessity to both feed that growing population as well as create enhanced infrastructure and greater use of multiple energy requirements to boost the economy etc.
At the same time some obviously visible concerns of environmental activists could not be dismissed as totally wrong either. Societies, normally are imbued with luddites and add to that the excess of GMOs, destruction of forest cover, encroachment into water bodies, polluting air and water and many other issues also became a cause of concern.
However, from the 90s alarm bells to till date, few things have gained clarity like:-
Human greed must be avoided but needs cannot be wished away ( GMOs became inevitable to address hunger and mal nutrition).
Every nation/ geographical location , as every does every human being, has a right to have access to energy needs and infrastructure requirements.
Similarly, every new technological development which was inevitable and enhanced human life had its impact and demanded its pound of flesh out of the natural environment.
The biggest hurdle in this issue, as in every issue of global impact, it is difficult to design one size fit all remedy at macro level for all nations and hence all attempts to expect every nation to listen to any international umpire / referee or rule is also not feasible.
It is for local communities and regional groups to get properly educated to adopt a balanced approach rather than getting swayed by extremists narratives which may have instant appeals but cannot any following because all human beings are vulnerable as they 'want to have the cake and eat it too'.
So, environmental issues are perennially a work in progress as it is interconnected with the human needs and developments.
That's why I always environmental is not an issue but part of our tissue.
It is an inevitable part of humanity and not apart from it .
In the meantime, from 90s I have interacted with some very knowledgeable domain specialists, written a few articles ( incidentally, Indian Express, then, had a supplement every Tuesday titled ' Nature', got some of them published, kept, preserving a few interesting books and articles, wrote and copied a few after I started writing blogs from 2009 or 2010.
Voila, some of them below in the links:-
https://contentwriteups.blogspot.com/2015/05/world-environment-day.html?m=0
https://contentwriteups.blogspot.com/2017/03/global-warming.html?m=0
https://contentwriteups.blogspot.com/2015/08/global-warming-science-or-scare.html?m=0
https://contentwriteups.blogspot.com/2013/02/global-warming-claims.html?m=0
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