When Bryan Adams wrote the line “Can’t stop this thing we started” for his hit song, he may not have even remotely thought how aptly it would symbolise our desperate attempts to control pollution and climate change. I have never followed the climate change summits because I have perceived them merely as get together meetings for world leaders, since these leaders themselves, are the biggest colluders in creating pollution and climate change.
I came across this news article about how toxic emissions have soared instead of decreasing which will, in turn, raise the global temperature more than expected in the years to come. The conditions mentioned in the report, to reduce climate change, clearly look like the strategy plan, from consulting companies, that devise strategies but do not implement them for their clients.
The conditions and constraints they suggest for their strategies to be successful when implemented are unrealistic a lot of the time, and clients do not get the value they expect from consulting gigs. This is an important reason why the worthiness of business consultants has declined.
The case with climate change summits seems to be similar because the expectations mentioned in the report to reduce pollution are laughable, at best.
The Earth is comprised of roughly 30% land and 70% water. Of the 30% land, there are still many islands and vast landmasses, like the North and South poles, where there are no human settlements, also, the Amazon forest, with comparatively very less human population and the Australian outbacks, that haven’t even been explored yet, among other areas. When we look at the incomprehensible amount of pollution we are creating, (of earth, air, water and sound), and compare it with our population distribution, it becomes mind-boggling.
As human population density increases in a place, pollution spikes exponentially, and the best example for this is Bangalore. From being a hill station and honeymoon destination till the early 1990’s, explosion in population influx, due to the booming IT industry, is set to make it one of the first unlivable cities in India. Delhi and Mumbai are other examples.
The news article speaks only about climate change due to greenhouse gas emission, which means the climate change summit does not take into account the consequences of other forms of pollution we are creating, that are affecting the Earth and water. We have been polluting nature in every possible way, and when nature can no longer tolerate the imbalance we are creating, it will self-reset.
What we need to understand is that climate change, in itself, is not going to cause catastrophic destruction. It will be the cumulative effect of the pollution of all the elements. Climate change, though, is a slow poison. It will kill slowly and painfully. More diseases will sprout, existing ones will get accentuated, and immunity systems will break down; not only of humans but of all living beings. I have mentioned how climate change can affect us adversely, in this article.
Whether we like it or not, and no matter how hard we try, we are already hurtling down the road of the 6th mass extinction event. The last extinction event was caused partly by the greenhouse effect, created when dinosaurs ate through all the vegetation, and released copious amounts of methane gas from their bellies, into the atmosphere. But the Earth, water and sound were not polluted, which could be why it took an asteroid to kick start the mass extinction event. This time, there will be no need for an external trigger. We have maligned nature in every possible way, to set off an implosion, that is going to cause enough destruction to wipe us all out.
My advice to everyone – don’t have kids. To the ones who already have them – tell your kids not to have their own children. The world has already become extremely malicious and vile in every possible way, and it is only going to get worse from here.