Shall we recollect the story of the goose that laid golden eggs! a fable that has survived over 2000 odd years. It’s fascinating because it has a resonance. Like in the fable, we prefer to manipulate and destroy our environment rather than be content with one gold egg a day. Kinship with nature is as old as humanity. Ancients attached so much value and gratitude to nature that earth was glorified as a mother. A kind of harmony existed. Gone are the days when trees, mountains, rivers and lakes were considered sacred. The creator appears to have decided on our planet as a show piece which stands enhanced by nature in its best form. Sadly, we have made short work of the creator’s handiwork and inheritances.
Despair grows under the cloudless skies in regions far and wide with many countries facing a serious failure of seasons and rains, a reality to which governments have woken up. Economies across the world may or may not be crucially dependent on agriculture. But there is no getting away from that fact that agriculture sustains the lives and livelihoods of a great majority of people, something that is overlooked in urban-centric policy makings.
When spiritual values gave way to material inclinations, man and nature began a struggle to survive each other. Today, climate change remains an unresolved situation also because industrialization is on the go and we are not ready for a need-based consumption lifestyle. Since the human body doesn’t bear an expiry date, we live in a myth of glorious uncertainty, the root of all material motivation knowing very well that endangering nature means endangering ourselves. Decades ago, an astute anthropologist Gregory Bateson reminded human race that the unit of survival is never an isolated organism, but it’s always the organism plus its environment.
Looking back, we know there were just hunters and gatherers. All they had was probably an ax or bow and arrow. Gatherers gathered what was available. People evolved into cultivators who plowed, sowed and reaped. Not content, better tools for more production were created, seeds were genetically engineered, and pesticides found their way into our foods and water sources. Genetically engineered plant and animals aren’t just products or trade items but life forms. In effect, we are losing control of nature in its finest form. With Monsanto, Aventis, Cargill and other companies dominating agriculture, what we see is that the Indian farmer lacks a lobby in this new cruel world of reforms and armchair liberals. Greed could be good on Wall Street. Not in the agricultural world of the Third world. MNCs shouldn’t be allowed to hold the cards, and the governments shouldn’t be disinterested bystanders.
Many countries do have climate action plans and above all the world believes America is working toward emission reductions. Though major nations have climate change high on their agenda in every summit for a mandatory cap- and -trade scheme to evolve, nothing but a move towards low carbon economy will help. Countries should use their technologies and entrepreneurial spirit to drive this revolution.
At the United Nations sustainable development summit 2015 Pope Francis reminded us that the environment is sacred, like humanity. Sacred groves result when humankind communes with nature and they have existed in different countries as part of the totemic culture, Modernization, industrialization, urbanization, the take-over of forests by the state and changing agricultural practices resulted in the sidelining of this grove culture across the world. In India these groves can be seen in the Western Ghats region in Chikmagalur, Kodagu, Shimoga and Dakshina Kannada. They are called by different names, but the rules are identical. The forest can’t be touched in any form. Such groves serve the great common purpose of maintaining the ecological balance.
A day to celebrate our environment was designated by the UN in 1972 in an attempt to help and shape the quality of our consciousness and in turn the quality of our environment. Planting trees, desilting ponds and lakes, human chains, awareness seminars and conferences should not be a new vocation for people only on notable days as for June 5. Given the hype created over such special days, one suspect that self- styled champions of environment protection are willing to put their weight behind anything, provided they get sufficient media attention or awards. Their intervention is limited to planting/ watering a sapling or a march to some place, a paper presentation or lecture somewhere and probably a sit at Jantar Mantar. After that, most of them want the TV cameras and newspapers to do the rest. Amidst all these and more the scientific consensus that human activity is causing global warming has become overwhelming. Exciting environmental technologies are being developed, and people agitate for action. If responsibility for the environment does not come in a way that is consistent with necessary economic growth, then human race and cultures will be on the path to extinction.
While all of us await the fruits of the global deal or important actions on climate change, let’s not forget to save energy in our small ways and spaces. Stop talking, lecturing and writing. Start planting trees and hope in the footsteps of Felix Finkbeiner, Jadev Payeng, Summer Rayne Oakes, Abdul Kareem or Wangari Maathai and lot more. We aren’t in the dearth of role models.
Nothing is more perilous for human destiny today than ecological illiteracy or myopia. It is far riskier economically as well to ignore climate change than to act to abate it. Nature does give us morbid missed calls. As they say, calamity is a man’s true touchstone. Ditto, for governments.
Elsa Lycias Joel & Harry Sheridon
