Recently I watched a short video clip on environment by a Bangladeshi scholar who echoed my thoughts and more… And at that moment (around 1:30 am) I decided to pen down my take on the subject.
WE ARE CURRENTLY WITNESSING SIXTH MASS EXTINCTION ON EARTH AND ARE NOT DOING ANYTHING TO STOP OR REVERSE IT. VERY SOON IT WILL BE OUR TURN!!!
The approx. age of Mother Earth is 4.5 billion years and, in this period, it has already witnessed mass extinction of living beings 5 times. Mass Extinction happens when 75% of the living beings are wiped out from the face of the earth. The last mass extinction happened some 65-66 million when dinosaurs, mammoth and few thousand other living organism went extinct, apparently due to asteroid collision.
According to many scientists in the field, we are experiencing 6th mass extinction. It is quite natural that few species would vanish from the face of earth due to atmospheric reason but right now, in the last 30-50 years, the process of extinction of species is happening at an exaggerated pace of 100x or 1000x times. Why and how?
Let me explain… if you think that the mother earth belongs to the humans alone, then you are fundamentally wrong. The earth belongs to all right from the micro organisms at the bottom of ocean to the whales, dolphins, millions of fishes to the land animals, birds and insects besides humans. Even the green plants in your house pots to the big trees in the jungle, all have equal share of mother earth. However, we humans have cornered almost 70% of land and potable water for our own use leaving the 30% for the rest of the creatures. This started sometime in the Seventies and has continued unabated… as per research and studies, based on the available natural resources on the earth, approx. 3.5 billion humans can be comfortably accommodated without disbalancing the equilibrium of the nature. In the early 70’s, the earth had recorded human population to be around 3.5 billion or the threshold level. In 1968, Prof. Paul Aldrich of Stanford University published a book called Population Bomb wherein he predicted few dooms day events in case the human population exceed beyond 3.5 billion… few of those have come true and we circumvented the others. Coming back to the point, with the unprecedented increase in human numbers, unhindered growth of the cultivated land, massive scale of urbanization, industrial growth, vehicular traffic etc. have robbed the other species of their rightful existence. Some hundred years ago, we were close to the nature, living in villages with accommodation sufficient to our needs and not wants, cohabiting with birds, animals and insects, and surviving together, but somehow the need got replaced with the wants and we the humans started expanding our living quarters exponentially throwing out the rest of the species.
Today, in circa 2024, the world human population exceeds 8 billion and still growing while the other species are shrinking. The human population has more than doubled in the last 50 years, which is much faster than the growth over the previous thousands of years put together. We have pushed the other species to the brink of extinction silently… the animals in the jungle or the living beings in the ocean can’t speak and doesn’t know how to protest but we humans can but we have chosen to maintain silence on the issue. Why? Because it is convenient for us, humans… more the numbers… more business opportunities and profits. We are the greediest species on the earth. We think we are the smartest and therefore the earth belongs to us… to expand we have done massive deforestation, created and used weapons of mass destructions without thinking about the future. What have we achieved? Nothing really, all superficial… we have ensured drastic change in the weather patterns due to global warming… the glaciers that used to be the lifeline for all the living things on earth have shrunk greatly and it is a matter of few hundred years that they will be gone completely ensuring the hastening of the 6th Mass Extinction on the earth. It has not sunk in yet, that with our so-called super intelligence, without potable water and clean breathable air, we will meet the same fate as the other species, we too shall perish, gone forever.
I am particularly worried about my country, India… we have become the most populous country in the world. I do not find it to be a proud achievement… as a matter of fact, we have limited land, potable water and other resources which probably is good for 0.8 billion people and just sufficient for 1 billion people but we have grown to 1.44 billion as of 2024 and still growing. In the last 10 years we have grown at 11% and 35% since the beginning of this century. There’s an urgent need to address this population explosion cutting across the politics, religion, caste lines.
I am in the last cycle of life, my generation or the generation next have not taken significant steps to reverse or stop this mayhem but I have hope in the youngsters around the world to listen to the screams of the less fortunate species and extend their hands to help them. I also have immense faith in MOTHER NATURE and her sense of fairness in maintaining equilibrium.
QUICKER WE REALISE, THE BETTER, THAT WE HAVE ONLY THIS PLANET EARTH TO CALL HOME NOT JUST OURS BUT THAT OF MILLIONS OF OTHER LIVING THINGS… WE MUST LEARN TO COHABIT PEACEFULLY. BEING A SUPERIOR SPECIE, IT IS OUR RESPONSIBILTY TO STOP THE DESTRUCTION.
Aranyascope 