The modern civilization is fragile, for it is riddled with problems
like poverty, war religious fundamentalism, racial conflict, terrorism
etc. Ecological imbalance is one such problem of our civilization. The
sophistication of life promoted by the scientific and technological
development the thirst for material well-being based on consumerism
and extravagance have resulted in the ecological imbalance which is
no less catastrophic than nuclear war. The effects of unbridled degradation of ecology are alarming in India also. It is reported that India has been losing nearly 1.5 million hectare of its forest every year. The green cover that India loses every five years equals the size of the Harayana State. The Gharwal Himalayas in the North and Western Ghats in the South are destroyed by the dynamite of development. Rivers like Ganges and the lakes like Dal, the Chilka and Mongtak, and the world heritage sites at Manas and Khaziranga in Assam are polluted. The environmental balance in places like Srinagar and Nilgiri has been badly upset. The wetlands along the coastline which are the ecotones of biological productivity are fast disappearing as they are being exploited for the prawn culture. Environmental degradation is global and not prevalent to a particular part of the world. The situation is grim all over the globe. The contemporary world is "integrated" in the spurious sense that its entire people are equally under the threat of ecological catastrophe. The effects of ecological imbalance do not have respect for borders. The industrial pollution of a country will affect other countries on the globe in the form of acid rains and poisonous gases. No country can afford to be complacent about its development. Numerous conferences and seminars are being held, global summits like the Earth Summit, the Global Biodiversity convention etc are held. New laws have been introduced and new organizations like the global Environmental Facility have been formed. Activities like social forestry, cleaning up of rivers are taken up. The factors of ecological degradation may be many. A few of them are discussed below:
Over consumption of meat, Excessive consumption of meat is found to be one of the causes of environmental degradation. The livestock production for meat has been proved to be fatal to the environment, for cattle-breeding is directly proportional to free-felling. For example more than 1,000,000 square kms of Brazil's Amazon basin has been converted into pastures to feed the live stock. Since 1960, almost half of the Central American Forest has been cleared to grow the feed for the cattle of the beef exporting industry. Over half of the cropland under cultivation grows livestock feed and 90% of the soil erosion is caused by growing feed crops like corn, sorghum and soy it is also noticed that extensive raising of lives stock feed crops is resulting in ground water depletion. 2. Militarism and war. Militarism is a great threat to ecology and
environment all over the world. The war industry has been destroying
the planet by extracting from its bowels enormous amounts of strategic
minerals like copper, aluminium, chromium, iron, lead, nickel, silver,
tin and hydrocarbons (fossil fuels) like coal, petroleum, methane etc,
to manufacture lethal weapons. The ecology has been battered by the
stockpiling of nuclear weapons, the radiation caused by the constant
atomic blasts and the traffic king of war vehicles and planes. It is
thoughtless to think that militarism is 'inevitable' for the security
of the man defence and development are incompatible. Real security can
never be assured by militarism. The stockpiling of arms can only increase
insecurity by posing humanity towards total destruction. 3. The greed for power and wealth. Misuse of the natural wealth is the off shoot of human being's pursuit of power and wealth. It is only when "need" becomes "greed" that people begin to illtreat nature and thereby suffer its deadly consequences, humanity has been exploiting nature has adapted itself but it needs to be conserved from further exploitation. 4. The dominance of thought and knowledge thought and knowledge are the fundamental factors of ecological imbalance. They are at the root of all other causes of it. They are the instruments of the tremendous scientific and technological development in the modern age. At the same time, their dominance is responsible for the lopsided development knowledge and thought, being contained and limited by the past, preclude, the integrated development. Our psychological past is a store house of beliefs, superstitions, ideas and habits, It identifies people as Hindus, the Christians, etc Hindus, the Americans etc. It divides them into groups under several labels of caste, religion, race, nationality etc. It separates human beings not only among themselves but also from Nature and its species. The fundamental and radical change in our relationship with nature is the only solution to the problem of ecology. We need to treat nature with care and respect. Nature is that which is not put together by thought and knowledge. It is not fabricated by the mind. It is prior to and independent of humanity. It includes animals, birds, trees oceans, seas, rivers, mountains, valleys, jungles and deserts. The sun, the moon and the stars are a part of it. Human being is also a part of Nature. No organisms are insignificant in nature. Each has its own special place and "utility". Nothing in Nature is exclusive and isolated. Every organism including the human being is interrelated to every other organism. But we have lost the sense of integrity with nature as a whole due to the dominance of thought and knowledge. Nature has its own order despite its complexity. But its supreme order
is being disturbed by the confused ways of our thinking and living.
The beautifully balanced "Prakriti" has been turned into a
terrifying and imbalanced "Vikrti". Having lost the feeling
of natural order, over head to come out of this imbalance leading to
problems. Disorder in life has been on the increase despite our efforts
to resolve it. We need to take recourse to the Middle way of using Nature
wisely and with responsibility. The Middle Way implies a development
which is sustainable but not destructive. It is not interested in short
term gains by going for indiscriminate development which consumes nature.
It implies a development planned on along term basis aimed at the protection
of nature. It is a wise use of natural resources to meet out needs without
thwarting the ability of the future generations to meet theirs.
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