Image Courtesy: theodysseyonline |
Human beings make a
difference even to the planet. According
to geologists, human beings have altered the fate of the planet. The earth has now entered a new geological
epoch which they call Anthropocene. The
12000 year-old Holocene has come to an end.
Human activities have
altered the very nature of the planet.
It is no more the mountains and their glaciers, or the oceans and the
cyclones, that determine the fate of terrestrial life. Man has reasons to be proud of himself: it is
he who shapes the destiny of the earth.
Should he be ashamed of
himself, rather?
Human activities have
increased the acidity in the oceans which in turn will make the marine
creatures to evolve and develop shells to withstand the man-made poison in the
saline waters. Geologists predict that
future limestone will come from the shells of these marine creatures.
Nitrogen content in the
atmosphere has been affected. River
deltas have shrunk. The very air is
poisoned. Soil is contaminated. There is nothing on the planet or its atmosphere
that man has not left unsullied.
Three centuries ago,
Jonathan Swift created a character named Gulliver who, after seeing different
worlds during his voyages, ended up as a misanthrope. During his final voyage, the Brobdingnagian
king judges Gulliver’s species “to be the most pernicious race of little odious
vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth.” Our geologists today would agree with that
judgment.
With the hubris that only the
human beings possess, we may assert that we are the creators of a great
civilisation. But our great creation is
turning out to be an elegy for the earth.
So true. The greed of human beings is responsible for this.
ReplyDeleteGreed it is, you are right.
DeleteWe are not the creators but destroyers in disguise....
ReplyDeleteSo true. 7.5 billion of us are spending 1800 billion us dollars on war machinery! Per year, according to latest reports.
Delete