Real Message of the privileged, for World Environment Day —
“Plant a Tree and get rid of the guilt feeling”.
Oops, that should be “plant a tree and save the world”, no? But just once in a while, there’s no harm in admitting the truth — our environmentalism is mostly meaningless rituals, and unabated destruction.
Good if you have really planted a Tree (not a potted plant) this time, but if not, don’t worry. Just like the religious shortcut of “pay money instead (‘dakhsina’) to the brahman”, you can sure post “environmental messages” in at least 10 WA groups, or FB, +++ That takes care.
So many messages today of “World Environment Day” for (& from) the privileged — “plant a tree & save the world”, Or “reduce plastic pollution, save the world”, and many variations of these.
Really planted a tree? “Tusi great ho” Sir /Madam. Now you don’t have to bother that your average car emits so much CO2 per year that just to sequester/ soak-in its carbon Dioxide emissions, you need 45–50 grownup trees. Yes, you read that right, 45-50, if it’s not a bigger car. And that’s just for the CO2. Then there’s the NOX, toxic particulates, ground level Ozone,…..let’s not drag the list. Plant a tree and don’t bother that the “chardham all-weather road” is wiping out about 14-15 lakh trees. Or that one dam in Sirmour for supplying water to Delhi is drowning a forest of 13 lakh tress, along with 100+ villages. The nature-dependent livelihood based communities that are protesting don’t know that it’s ‘development’, so need to be taught. So, hey the good folks among you — go and teach them to “save every drop of water”, while each of our toilet flushes out 25-40 litres of that drop by drop wealth, every day. And the modest 300 units of ‘Bijli’ you consume every month – from coal power plants? 1500 litres a month minimum. So the poor must be taught to save.
And just that one flight from Delhi to Bangalore & back ? Another 12–15 full grown trees needed to be “carbon neutral”. And big water More flights ? Forget about the maths then, and be happy. And the ACs, the microwaves, the house itself, the food, the cosmetics, the variety of clothing, the…..ufff, very very inconvenient.
Meanwhile, already in April 2023 (summer yet to begin), the average Sea Surface Temperature has broken all records. Earth’s Energy/heat Imbalance has reached record levels, and rising. The Antarctic sea ice anomaly has broken records too. Both the main drivers, GreenHouse Gases CO2 and CH4 (methane) keeps rising sharply. The Equatorial Ocean temperature is unusually high for months, repeated marine heatwaves are wiping marine life with 40% of Coral reefs — “rainforests of the oceans” — already dead. Rest are sick and counting. The Arctic region is warming 5-6 times faster than average, sprinting towards a collapse of Earths cooling system, and a potential “methane bomb”. If that starts, it will be “Game over, you lost”.
Severe water shortages and drought have already badly affected many African countries, forcing hunger, famine & displacement for many millions. And the animals – millions are dead of thirst & starvation, including hundreds of elephants. Over 5 million hectares of forests burned, of all places, in ice-cold Siberia, many more millions in Canada, western US, Spain, Italy,…… About 30% of the land area of India is undergoing desertification. The list goes on and on…
Ever wondered what today’s young people and children will think and speak about us, our generations ? That you religiously observed “environment day”? Planted a tree? If you have noticed how bad last year’s Indian heatwaves were, a young person (below 25 now) in South Asia is most likely to face 14 times as many heatwave days by the year 2050. Remember the devastating Pakistan floods last year ? Those same youth are likely to face 2-3 times as many devastating floods by that time, and increasing. And more droughts too, leading to heavy pressures on food and water. And cyclones, and…. Many more starvation deaths than ever before (are already happening). They might correctly identify these 2-3 generations — well off / privileged adults during 1950s to 2020/30, as committing by far the biggest genocide and ecocide. Far bigger then the Nazis did, much bigger even than what the white European people did in the Americas and Africa. And not only to humans.
May be it’s in our “wealth accumulation genes” to be blindly destructive ? In the past 6000+ years of our ‘civilisation’ alone, we Homo Sapiens, have ‘successfully’ killed off about 85% of all wild animals and we’ll over 50% of all plants. We have already proliferated us and our domesticated animals so much, that today only 4% of all mammals (the latest and most evolved animals) are Wild. And they are being continuously pushed out, year after year. Now we humans are a massive 36%, with our cattle, pigs, sheep, goats, cats, dogs…..comprising another 60% of all mammalian biomass. Let’s do the rituals of “Biodiversity Day” !! The insect populations are showing clear signs of collapse almost across continents. Don’t worry, we can pollinate our fruits & vegetables by flying micro-robots, that our great technology companies are already experimenting with. Our destructive “naked Earth” agriculture leads to annual fertile soil loss of anywhere between 25–75 billion tons every year, or roughly 3-9 tons for each one of us ! And our humongous water consumption is pushing about 80% of humanity to water scarcity by 2050. Animals cant demand, right? “Sustainability” is just a fancy word.
Our multi-pronged attacks from ever increasing money-consumption-production-extraction-destruction by the ‘rich and well-off’ of the world shows no sign of stopping, not even slowing down.
The privileged of this world (not only the elite) love to do the rituals that wash off their occasional guilt feelings. But it’s an entirely different ball game to face the real consequences of our “richer, faster, higher” societal insanity . Unfortunately, the Earth has no particular fondness of our spoilt-brat antics, we are no “special child”. Our species is in existence for around 250,000 years, and our Homo Genus for a little over 2.5 million. It seems our wealthier “leader-population” realises that it’s a fairly long time, and decided to take us all to a multi-species forced suicide.
Not a hopeful ‘environment day’ message, but that’s where we have taken the Earth now.
— Soumya.
