Summer of ’69? Besides being a witness to few of the major events which occurred in 1969 –
On July 20, one of man’s crowning achievements occurred when American Astronaut Neil Armstrong became the first human to set foot on the Moon and uttered the immortal words, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” Bfore that, the Apollo 10 mission had also transmitted the first colour pictures of Earth from space. The US fought the Vietnam War and the last episode of the original “Star Trek” aired on NBC – titled, “The Turnabout Intruder”.
Another (then-major, forgotten-now) group that came into foreground was, “Friends of the Earth”. The group founded by Donald Aitken, David Brower and Jerry Mander were extremely passionate about environmentalism and human rights.
No, do not take me wrong – I am not here to tell you stories of the past. I am here, trying to make a consensus or may be, strike a deal (if that sounds better) between what we give Earth and what we expect in return – the barter that we are following for ages, intentionally or unintentionally for quite some time now.
“Friends of the Earth” – it is quite interesting to note how this title can be condensed to just being called, “FOES”. And it is even more interesting to note how each one of us, in particular, is as big a foe to Earth as any one of us in general.
So we were talking about striking the deal – now in business, when a deal is made, many aspects are studied. Analysts put all their Business intelligence to use, there are legal advisors telling you the legality of the contract – how to escape if you breach it and how you hamper the opposite party’s evasion if it breaches. Finances are structured to check that the capital invested gives the appropriate returns. Short-term profit is calculated, while a long-term profit is predicted and expected. Loss? Yes, you prepare well for that too by keeping in mind several mitigation techniques, appointing disaster analysts. So that is how a business deal is finally checked and if all looks good – consensus is drawn and partners are made.
The flow may, however, differ from the type of market in the picture.
A monopoly? This would be a state where there exists just a single supplier of particular commodity/commodities. This is – hands down – a case of imperfect competition since the supplier is the sole seller of goods with no close substitute. The term first appeared in Aristotle’s Politics (384-322 B.C.E. which describes the happy life intended for man by nature as he lived in accordance with virtue). Now that would be some real long forgotten past which we are delving into.
It is quite safe to say that all the sciences ultimately converge into one. Back in school when we read a term in a particular subject – we kept its meaning, significance and usage to that subject only. However, as we grew up – we started challenging the lateral thinking in our brains and started connecting the dots. We started examining the facts more closely whilst we made an attempt to knit them all together to find the answers.
Similarly, the monopoly in economics is the same in environmental science as well. Isn’t Nature and environment at large the sole supplier of the quintessential requirements which makes Earth different from all its siblings? Would you be willing to relocate to say a Jupiter, a Mars or a Venus? No. Why? Because it will not offer the same environment which you would need for your existence – they will not offer Life.
We are the consumers. We have always been the consumer. Mother Nature has been providing us with all that we need, most of the times, fulfilling even more than what is required.
You do your monthly rationing. You choose wisely and by the end of the month – you make wiser decisions. You cut out on your luxuries because you know that basic necessities should be met first else you will perish. So you will agree that rationing is important – spending less is better than having more than required. This way you strike the balance.
Do we allow the Nature to do the same, to rejuvenate and get back to us with all its vitality and vigour and serve our needs? No. And when Earth does the rationing for itself we see horrific events taking place – unexpected rainfall, snow in the month of May, floods that take away huge tolls of life, droughts and famine, animals experience a shift in their normal hibernating period, lightening – thunder and cloud bursts – Nature’s fury!
The barter arrangement which we have made with Mother Earth has adopted a unidirectional course. We keep taking from it, profit from all that it provides us. Despite the legal tenders and policies which exist, we still mock at them and behave recklessly in using our natural resources. We know that our escape route is clear – we make policies and we mar them – in this case, the opposite party will not speak up or collect evidence against us and drag us to the court of law.
One might wonder – I lead a normal life. I have a white-collar job. Eat healthy. Sing the “Save the Earth” saga 24/7. Turn off the lights when not in the room. Say ‘No to Plastic’. ’Celebrate all the Earth Days, read about biodiversity forums. Know my nature facts well. I am well versed with all the policies that we have adopted as a nation or are a part of. Take part in drawing room discussions and lament about the heat rise and dust storm in the NCR region. Make donations for the environmental fundraising and show solace when a farmer commits a suicide – I am a committed son to Mother Earth – or are you?
Scenario unravelled – You definitely lead a normal life and as an average normal individual you are contributing some good 20 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide annually, so you are pretty high on the carbon footprints record. You have white collar job but the exceptional amount of carbon benefaction coming from you is enough to turn all your collars pitch-black. The moment you plug in you contribute to the CO2 emission since electricity = carbon dioxide.
Saying ‘No to Plastic’? Well done. If you have started this campaign, I request you to refrain from being a hypocrite. You are shopping at a mall and the cashier asks you to pay ₹5 or ₹7 extra for the cloth or paper bag since they are also for ‘Green Earth, Clean Earth’ and you willfully pay them and give a smile as a token of appreciation. Good, job well done! In the evening you go out to buy fruits and vegetable, the poor vegetable/fruit vendor asks you to pay the same amount or even lesser for the recyclable bags, you raise your eyebrows at him and turn into a fireball, you bargain even harder to compensate for the added price of the biodegradable bag. Epic fail, you could have done better than this!
On the contrary, now that you have taken up this campaign to end plastic use, please be well informed that plastic would not only mean the plastic bags which you receive from those poor vegetable and fruit vendors. This would include all the wrapping material which is used for those tasty quick bites and chips. And plastic is just a category to mention everything that is non-biodegradable – which will include the worn out laptops and desktops, the medical equipments that are no longer operational, the defective cosmetics (contains the highest amount of chemicals) and their packaging, the list would be never-ending.
Moving forward, I am certain your normal life includes a recreational trip for you and your family? As much as I love travelling – I feel sad to see people totally misunderstanding the term ‘wanderlust’. Wanderlust is only becoming popular because people see travelling as a therapy to evade for a moment from their dull monotonous life – they wander because they are lost.
Your yearly vacations add a lot of tourism revenue – generating good figures for our economy but in turn, it damages Mother Earth. The more a place expects tourism – the more development is carried out to cater to the needs of the visitors. Hoteliers cash in on this – they bring up major buildings and resorts in hills, food joints, adventure sports – forests are cut paving way for danger. Climate gets disrupted – the natural vegetation is at a huge risk due to the daunting human activities.
So have you, have we, or has anyone of us been a good committed child to Mother Earth? No.
Besides the technological advances, Google, mobile phones and processed food, have we really left anything else for our successors? I do not mean to discourage the little that you are doing or are trying to do as a good responsible citizen but we really need to delve into our activities a little more and give it some retrospection – maybe contribute a little more.
A Psalm of Life, it always talked about leaving your footprints on the sand of time – while we continue increasing our carbon footprints, I am not too sure if that will be enough for us to be remembered. Even the water kept on a stove would finally evaporate if the gas is not turned off well in time – it is time we check our burners before we perish with a little chance to undo the action.
Earth needs our hug, are we willing to give it?