What is it that ails our planet? What remedial measures can be taken according to the writer, Nani Palkhivala?
Answers
Answer:
The Ailing Planet: The Green Movement’s Role”, was written by Nani Palkhivala and published in The Indian Express on 24 November 1994. The issues that he raised regarding the declining health of the earth continue to have relevance.
Explanation:
The Green Movement, which started nearly twenty-five years ago, is one of the single most important movements that captivated the imagination of the entire human race. In 1972 the world’s first nationwide Green party was founded in New Zealand. Since then, the movement has moved ahead. Today, we have shifted from a superficial view to a view that takes into account all aspects including those related to the environment and ecology of the world.
This shift in human awareness was revolutionary since Copernicus, who stated in the sixteenth century that the earth and the other planets revolved round the sun. For the first time there is a growing worldwide realisation that ‘ the earth itself is a living organism. It has its own metabolic needs and fundamental processes, which need to be respected and preserved.
The earth, like a patient, had begun to show symptoms of failing health. It was then that we started realising our responsibilities to the planet. We are the caretakers of this inheritance, the earth which we need to preserve for our future generations.
The World Commission on Environment and Development popularised the concept of using natural resources while maintaining an ecological balance, without causing harm to the environment in 1987. The Commission defined the idea as growth that fulfils the needs of the present without harming the reserve of future generations to meet their needs. This implied that we ought to progress without depleting the natural resources that the future generations would need.
In the zoo at Lusaka, Zambia, there is a cage with a notice “The world’s most dangerous animal”. Inside the cage is a mirror where you see yourself. Various organisations in different countries helped in creating the awareness in human beings that they should not exploit the planet mindlessly. Human beings have realised the wisdom of shifting from a system based on domination to one based on partnership.
There are about 1.4 million living species that have been listed on the earth. Biologists think that there are about . three to a hundred million other living species that are still unknown.
Mr L.K. Jha in the Brandt Commission Report raised the question whether we wanted to leave behind a scorched, a sick environment for our coming generations. Mr Lester R. Brown in his book, The Global Economic Prospect, pointed out that the earth’smain biological systems are fisheries, forests, grasslands and croplands. These form the basis of the global economic system. They supply our food and provide almost all the raw materials for industry except minerals and petroleum-derived synthetics. In large areas of the world, these systems are reaching a level where their efficiency is being damaged.
Over-fishing is common, and forests are being destroyed for firewood for cooking. As a result, firewood has become so expensive in some places that it is more expensive than food. According to Dr Myres, the tropical forests which are powerhouses of evolution, as they house innumerable species, are facing extinction.
It has been well said that forests precede mankind; deserts follow. Human beings destroy forestland turning it into deserts. The world’s tropical forests are now being destroyed at the rate of forty to fifty million acres a year. As a result, people use dung for burning and this takes away from the soil an important natural fertiliser.
According to the World Bank we need to increase the rate of forest planting by five times to cope with the expected fuel wood demand.
James Speth, the President of the World Resources Institute, stated that we are losing an acre-and- a-half of forests every second. Article 48 A of the Constitution of India provides that the State shall try to protect and improve the environment and to safeguard the forests and wildlife of the country but unfortunately laws are never respected or enforced in India. Despite laws against “casteism, untouchabillity and bonded labour”, even after several years of the functioning of the Constitution, these social evils thrive. Recently, Parliament’s Estimates Committee highlighted the disastrous exhaustion of India’s forests over the last four decades. It stated that India is losing its forests at the rate of 3.7 million acres a year. The actual loss of forests is likely to be about eight times more than this.
A three-year study by the United Nations using satellites and aerial photography studied the environment in eighty-eight countries. It reported that that the environment was ‘critical’ in many of these countries.