Global warming-World in Search of a new Paradigm

The Western paradigm of consumption, which originated as a tool, and is still sustaining on, exploitation cannot embrace the entire humanity. The world is searching a new paradigm to preserve nature and benefit the entire creation. Expert Hindutva what else the new paradigm can be, which is capable of preserving nature by inspiring a greater respect for it, suggests

Dr R. Brahmachari

Any living being cannot live without oxygen. But where this oxygen we inhale came from in the atmosphere? Plants, during photosynthesis, absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen, which is a little bit more than that they inhale for respiration. This excess oxygen accumulated over millions of year’s accounts for today’s free oxygen in our atmosphere. Moreover, by absorbing carbon-dioxide from air only plants can prepare food, the entire animal kingdom is dependent on. So, trees can live without human but vice versa. The human greed is responsible for world’s forests disappearing at an amazingly fast rate.

Russia accounts for 23 per cent of world’s woodlands and the other major regions are the Amazon, the West and the Central Africa, Indonesia, Alaska and Western Canada. Everywhere logging and deforestation is continuing as if there would be no ecological problems tomorrow. Thus the modern civilization, based on Western concept of consumption, is injuring Nature in two ways --- firstly, by releasing more and more carbon-dioxide and other greenhouse gases linked to global warming, and secondly, by cutting down trees, our real friends, who convert baneful carbon-dioxide into amrita.

Formerly, the Communist countries were famous for cutting down forests and the present Russia is continuing that trend. Whenever the Russian government is in desperate need of hard cash, it opens up its forests for exploitation. In 1996, the Yeltsin government invited logging companies from USA, Japan, South Korea and European countries and they crashed into Russia’s vast western and Siberian forests and destruction went on into a scandalous scales. At least 10,000 sq km of forests were cut down within a few months.

According to a report by the World Resources Institute (WRI), Washington, more than 60 per cent of world’s pristine forest covers have already been cut down. Another report by UNO’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) says that between 1991 and 1995, tropical rain forests were burnt and bulldozed at the rate of 126,000 sq km per year. Satellite photos show that the Brazilian rain forests are either burnt or cut at an average rate of 21,000 sq km per year.

The European forests are, on the other hand, being destroyed by the polluted air and the consequent acid rains. A report published jointly by the European Commission and the UN Economic Commission for Europe, in 1995, says that every fourth tree in Europe’s 1.6 million sq km of forests spread over 30 countries, is dying or sick. The chief culprits are pollutants, namely, sulphur-oxides and nitrogen-oxides of car and industrial exhausts. At present, the entire forest area of the Czech Republic is dying because of the air pollution.

Hindutva teaches that nature is everyone’s mother and hence everybody should respect the Mother Nature and cause no harm to her. Hindutva teaches that for livelihood one should milk Mother Nature and never exploit her.

Forests provide home to world’s 50 million forest-dwellers and also most of land-based plants and animals besides regulating the local temperature, rainfall and the climate. But the entire forest areas in 76 countries have already been cut down and in 11 countries only 5 per cent is left. During past 50 years, more than 50 per cent of world’s forests have gone.

Even 50 years ago most of the seas were pristine, but now the culture of consumption has started polluting them. Oceans, spreading over two thirds of the earth’s surface and having depth from 4 to 11 km, control climate and weather and regulate temperature. In brief, the survival of human kind is absolutely dependent on the state of the oceans. But now they are being polluted by fertilizers, pesticides, oil spills and billions of tons of industrial wastes. Furthermore, owing to indiscriminate fishing, many species of whales, seals, sharks and many other fish and aquatic creatures are on the verge of extinction. Many species are going into extinction before being recognized by man. According to an estimate, as many as 300 species of fishes, birds, insects and plants are going into extinction every day owing to the human attack.

About 50 per cent of world population (nearly 6 billion) live in Asia and they, being lured by the Western culture of consumption, have started following the Western type of industrialization with an aspiration to lead an affluent life like that of Westerners. But a World Bank report says that because of the rapid growth and industrialization, toxic releases between 1975 and 1988, went up by 500 per cent in Indonesia, 800 per cent in Philippines and 1200 per cent in Thailand. This has made Asia’s cities, rivers and lakes the most polluted in the world. Among the 15 most polluted cities of the world, 13 are in Asia. A report by the Asian Development Bank in Manila reveals that Asia is now the world’s most polluted and environmentally degraded region and China has emerged as the world’s second largest greenhouse gas emitter.

Since cutting down forests increases GDP, large logging companies in Indonesia, some of which are owned by cronies and relatives of President Suharto, are turning forests into barren lands, Kalimantan, an Indonesian portion of the Borneo Island, is now the place of world’s fastest deforestation. More than 278 logging companies are engaged in cutting down forests at the rate of 8,630 sq km per year. The original forest area of Kalimantan was 5,30,000 sq. km and now only 3,00,000 sq km is left of it. But is it possible for the Asians to catch up the Americans or the Europeans in the race for consumption? Simply no. Today the Americans account for only 4 per cent of the world population, but consume 24 per cent of the world resources, which is highly inequitable. Such an inequitable distribution cannot be considered a model for the entire humanity.

For example, there is one car for every 1.6 Americans and to provide this facility to 950 million Indians and 1.2 billion Chinese; it would need 1.3 billion cars, which is not possible. And if provided, one can easily guess how much pollution they would create. An average adult needs 2,200 calories per day and an American consumers 3,600 calorie. To provide this much of food to every Chinese and every Indian, peoples of other parts of the world would have to starve. In India, per capita consumption of fresh water is 2.2 cubic metres while a Canadian uses 98.5 cubic metres and hence to provide so much of fresh water to every Indian and every Chinese, all sources of fresh water in the world would dry up.

So, it becomes evident that the Western paradigm of consumption cannot embrace the entire humanity, or in other words, it is incapable of taking care of each human being of this planet. This paradigm originated as a tool for exploitation and still is sustaining on exploitation. It cares for a short term benefit for a few and hence cannot think for long term benefit for the entire humanity and owing to this reason, it is unfit to take care of nature and environment. “Modern civilization has given decent living standard to people in advanced Western nations. But how do we assure economic well-being and human dignity for the rest of the humankind without ruining the environment?”, asks Shri Mikhail Gorbachev, the former Russian leader and now President of International Green Cross, a non-governmental planet preserving group. “This problem has no technological solution. A political and moral choice will have to be made,” ha adds.

The world therefore is in search of a new paradigm that would preserve nature and environment and look for long term benefit for the entire creation including man. “Some new paradigm will emerge incorporating the recognition that humanity depends on nature and not vice versa…. The change will occur because every year distress signals from the biosphere become more pointed…. When more people will be forced to understand how environmental degradation mortgages their future and the future of their descendants”, says Shri Peter Vitousek, a biologist of Stanford University. “Can the wizards of materialism halt the environmental degradation and begin to repair the injuries inflicted on nature?”, asks Shri Eugene Linden, an author of several books on environment. Maldives – 2624, India – 2395, Pakistan – 2316, Srilana – 2275, Bangladesh – 2019, Nepal – 1957 (Statesman – 26/3/98, Sowed: Human Development in S. Asia – 1997) “Our challenge is to find new ways to address those problems by reaching back to our oldest values of community and responsibility by inspiring a greater respect for the land and other resources (of nature) we share,” says the US Vice-President Shri Al Gore.

Except Hindutva what else can be this new paradigm, which is capable of preserving nature by inspiring a greater respect for it? Can there be another? Hindutva teaches that nature is everyone’s mother and hence everybody should respect the Mother Nature and cause no harm to her. Hindutva teaches that for livelihood one should milk Mother Nature and never exploit her. So we tell Shri Gore, Shri Gorbachev and Shri Vitousek that “in Hindutva you will find everything you are looking for”.

Recently an American housewife, Smt Bobbi Mcaughey, has given birth to seven babies at a time and the entire West is projecting it as a great victory over nature, triumph of medical science over infertility and revolution in making babies. Giving birth to septuplets is being explained as merely a side effect of the drugs Smt McCaughey took. But in reality, it is another distress signal from nature that says, nature has started taking revenge on humanity by disturbing human procreation, in retaliation for the injuries the culture of consumption has caused to her.