Environment

we are part of the environment. 

So, we are not able to move away and fix it. Besides, environment is too vast and it is nurtured and neglected, developed and destroyed, cared and contaminated by too many factors. 

Therefore, it becomes all the more difficult to address the issue.

Actually in a real sense any environment is not an issue it is part of our tissue.

The more sensibly and practically sensitive we become, we can adopt ourselves in such a way to know what to receive and rejoice from the environment , what to reject and what may be rectified and to what an extent.

Environment ,biodiversity -Maximum impact in minimum time

Maximum impact in minimum time -great two minutes video.

Julia Roberts Just Taught Me More In 2 Minutes Than Anyone Else Has Done In A Lifetime                                                                                                                                      

http://www.dailyliked.net/julia-roberts-powerful-video/

Brief and beautiful and yes it is a must watch by everyone.

Then learn how to have a balanced and proper relationship with nature.

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2015/05/world-environment-day.html

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2013/04/mother-earth-day-april-22nd-2013.html

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2010/12/international-year-of-biodiversity-2010.html

Environment and Nature

Environment and nature –we must feel/have a sense of being part of them  

Unfortunately balanced views on environment are lacking in India and perhaps in most parts of the world.

The ordinary citizens especially small children and youth are confused because the views on environment run amuck like a bewildered squirrel caught in forest fire jumping from one branch to another branch, amid branches  of extremes of either total indifference or meaningless activism for publicity in the name of environmental protection or over enthusiastic deep knowledge based output which only specialist in the field can understand or collating data from somewhere to everywhere or to everything or peddling voluminous comparative dry data.

It is all the more complicated because we grow up, especially in urban places far removed from the natural nature/environment  -this is different from artificial landscaping or funded horticultural activities- though they are needed as something is better than nothing.

In this scenario what is required is primarily paying attention, observing and wherever possible to tune in with the splendors of nature and natural environment.

Role of Environment

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2015/05/world-environment-day.html

Role of Nature and Biodiversity 

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2013/04/mother-earth-day-april-22nd-2013.html

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2010/12/international-year-of-biodiversity-2010.html

World Environment Day

As we celebrate The World Environment Day on 5^th 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, bio-diversity, 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 of 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’ write, “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.

Some of my old write ups on environmental issues.

LIFE WILL CONTINUE ALWAYS NO DOOMSDAY

http://www.authorstream.com/Presentation/balayogiv-1492318-life-continue/

http://www.scribd.com/doc/104256818/Life-Will-Continue

URBANISATION MANIA CAUSES EL NINO

http://www.authorstream.com/Presentation/balayogiv-1491735-el-nino/

http://www.scribd.com/doc/104257892/EL-NINO

Caring for Our Environment

   Caring for Our Environment             

There is hope
if people will begin to awaken that spiritual part of themselves,
that heartfelt knowledge
that we are caretakers of this planet.
~ Brooke Medicine Eagle ~

Every creature is better alive than dead,
men and moose and pine trees,
and he who understands it aright
will rather preserve its life than destroy it.
~ Henry David Thoreau,
from 'Chesuncook' The Maine Woods, 1848 ~

The struggle to save the global environment is in one way
much more difficult than the struggle to vanquish Hitler,
for this time the war is with ourselves.
We are the enemy, just as we have only ourselves as allies.
~ Al Gore ~

Our children may save us
if they are taught to care properly for the planet;
but if not, it may be back to the Ice Age or the caves
from where we first emerged.
Then we'll have to view the universe above
from a cold, dark place.
No more jet skis, nuclear weapons, plastic crap,
broken pay phones,
drugs, cars, waffle irons, or television.
Come to think of it, that might not be a bad idea.
~ Jimmy Buffet
from 'Mother Earth News' March-April 1990 ~

A human being is part of the whole,
called by us "Universe,"
a part limited in time and space.
He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings
as something separated from the rest
- a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness.
This delusion is a kind of prison for us,
restricting us to our personal desires and
to affection for a few persons nearest to us.
Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison
by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures
and the whole of nature in its beauty.
~ Albert Einstein, 1950 ~

It is imperative to maintain portions of the wilderness untouched
so that a tree will rot where it falls,
a waterfall will pour its curve without generating electricity,
a trumpeter swan may float on uncontaminated water
- and moderns may at least see
what their ancestors knew in their nerves and blood.
~ Bernand De Voto, Fortune, June 1947 ~

Oh Beautiful for smoggy skies, insecticided grain,
For strip-mined mountain's majesty above the asphalt plain.
America, America, man sheds his waste on thee,
And hides the pines with billboard signs, from sea to oily sea.
~ George Carlin ~

Man has been endowed with reason, with the power to create,
so that he can add to what he's been given.
But up to now he hasn't been a creator, only a destroyer.
Forests keep disappearing, rivers dry up, wild life's become extinct,
the climate's ruined and the land grows poorer and uglier every day.
~ Anton Chekhov
'Uncle Vanya' 1897 ~

We must not be forced to explore the universe in search of a new home
because we have made the Earth inhospitable, even uninhabitable.
For if we do not solve the environmental and related social problems
that beset us on Earth - pollution, toxic contamination,
resource depletion, prejudice, poverty, hunger
- those problems will surely accompany us to other worlds.
~ Donald G. Kaufman and Cecilia M. Franz
from 'Biosphere 2000: Protecting Our Global Environment' 1996 ~

Something will have gone out of us as a people
if we ever let the remaining wilderness be destroyed;
if we permit the last virgin forests to be turned into
comic books and plastic cigarette cases;
if we drive the few remaining members of the wild species
into zoos or to extinction;
if we pollute the last clear air and dirty the last clean streams
and push our paved roads through the last of the silence,
so that never again will Americans be free in their own country
from the noise, the exhausts, the stinks of human and automotive waste.
~ Wallace Stegner,
letter to David E. Pesonen of the Wildland Research Center,
3 December 1960 ~

To waste, to destroy our natural resources,
to skin and exhaust the land instead of using it so as to increase its usefulness,
will result in undermining in the days of our children the very prosperity
which we ought by right to hand down to them amplified and developed.
~Theodore Roosevelt,
7th Annual Message, 3 December 1907 ~

We never know the worth of water till the well is dry.
~ Thomas Fuller
'Gnomologia' 1732 ~

Will urban sprawl spread so far that most people lose all touch with nature?
Will the day come when the only bird a typical American child ever sees
is a canary in a pet shop window?
When the only wild animal he knows is a rat -
glimpsed on a night drive through some city slum?
When the only tree he touches
is the cleverly fabricated plastic evergreen
that shades his gifts on Christmas morning?
~ Frank N. Ikard,
North American Wildlife and Natural Resources Conference, Houston, March 1968 ~

The earth we abuse and the living things we kill
will, in the end, take their revenge;
for in exploiting their presence we are diminishing our future.
~ Marya Mannes 'More in Anger' 1958 ~

How long can men thrive between walls of brick,
walking on asphalt pavements,
breathing the fumes of coal and of oil,
growing, working, dying,
with hardly a thought of wind, and sky, and fields of grain, seeing only machine-made beauty, the mineral-like quality of life?
~ Charles A. Lindbergh,
Reader's Digest, November 1939 ~

 

Environment -A Spiritual Response to the Environment

MY TURN: A Spiritual Response to the Environment
By Jagmohan
Hinduism Today
November, 1994
In 1972, international leaders met at Stockholm and expressed grave
concern over the deteriorationg environment. Since then, thousands of
conferences, seminars and symposia have been held all over the world,
and millions of dollars spent. Hosts of "expert" bodies have cropped
up. Non-governmental organisations have sprouted like mushrooms. But
what has been the net income of all this? During the twenty-year
period between Stockholm and Rio de Janeiro (1992), the world's
environment has deteriorated further and ecological imbalance
intensified.
This is happening because awareness of environmental problems is only
skin-deep. Unfortunately, our thinking and actions are still being
shaped by a mechanical view of nature. Unless concern for the
environment acquires a spiritual base and becomes a part of
contemporary man's psyche, declarations will not get converted into
commitments and no real change in existing practices and no real
improvement in existing conditions will take place. Could religious
and cultural traditions help bring the desired change? Could ancient
values be regenerated to evolve a new ethos which would enable the
present-day man to perceive life as an organic entity and understand
that sea, soil, forests, clouds, mountains and teeming millions
spread over the earth are inseparable parts of the cosmic web? My
answer to both questions is in the affirmative.
No religion, perhaps, lays as much emphasis on environmental ethics
as Hinduism. The Mahabharat, Ramayan, Vedas, Upanishads, Bhagavad
Gita, Puran and Smriti contain the earliest messages for preservation
of environment and ecological balance. Nature, or Earth, has never
been considered a hostile element to be conquered or dominated. In
fact, man is forbidden from exploiting nature. He is taught to live
in harmony with nature and recognize that divinity prevails in all
elements, including plants and animals. The Mahabharat hints that the
basic elements of nature constitute the Cosmic Being -- the mountains
His bones, the earth His flesh, the sea His blood, the sky His
abdomen, the air His breath and agni (fire) His energy. The whole
emphasis of the ancient Hindu scriptures is that human beings cannot
separate themselves from natural surroundings and Earth has the same
relationship with man as the mother with her child.
Planting and preservation of trees are made sacred in religious
functions. The Varah Purana says, "One who plants one peepal, one
neem, one bar, ten flowering plants or creepers, two pomegranates,
two oranges and five mangos, does not go to hell." In the Charak
Sanhita, destruction of forests is taken as destruction of the state,
and reforestation an act of rebuilding the state and advancing its
welfare. Protection of animals is considered a sacred duty. Our
scriptures warn, "Oh wicked persons! If you roast a bird, then your
bathing in sacred rivers, pilgrimage, worship and yagnas are
useless." In our ancient mythology, birds and animals have always
been identified with gods and goddesses.
The current deplorable condition demands a spiritual response. A
fundamental reorientation of human consciousness, accompanied by
action that is born out of inner commitment, is very much needed. One
of the measures that could help a great deal to fulfill this need is
to regenerate and rejuvenate basic values of Hindu culture and
propagate them.
Jagmohan, member of Indian Parliament in the Rajya Sabha, is the
former Governor of Jammu & Kashmir, India, and Lieutenant Governor of
Delhi.
Hinduism Today
November, 1994
More at:
Hinduism Today
http://www.HinduismToday.com