Tuesday 17 March 2015

Let nature take its share of blame

We are forced into believing, thanks to activism of some, every disaster is our own making since we have inflicted irreversible damage to the environment. 
But are people responsible for all  the churning the environment undergoes? 
Are all the floods, the typhoons, the cyclones, the  hailstorm, the flash-floods, the avalanche, and so on triggered by the humans? 
In any of our expedition do we end up "plundering" and polluting the environment if we interact with it? 
Do we always end up dangerously stirring up the environment's internal ecological balance everytime we shake its hands. 
Have humans already stretched the environmental elasticity beyond the limit? And anything beyond is fatal for which humans are to be blamed?
Notwithstanding the palpable, measurable dis-balances some of human activities have injected into the environment, is it fair to entirely put the blame on them? 
Can we have somewhat different take on all that environment does to itself and to us? 
There can be no argument that the environment is a living entity.  The rivers, the mountain, the snows, the wind, the seas the oceans. They all have life. 
They breathe. they grow up. They live. They die. They have their own life-cycle. 
Hence their ups, their downs. Their surges, their ebbs.

​​Super Cyclone Pam
​ ​has hit 
Vanuatu
​, one of the 
world's 
poorest countries. 
President Baldwin Lonsdale, according to BBC,  said the storm had "wiped out" all development of recent years and his country would have to rebuild "everything
​".                                                                                                  Photo: BBC

Are we sure these living manifestations of environment don't churn themselves? After all a living thing churns itself.  
And does an environmental churning not result in a disaster for humanity? 
Why should we not believe environment's churning and turning, its internal balancing act (the effort to pull back from deviations caused due to its own course), its own life-cycle result in disaster for human. At least sometimes.  
By no means I deny the dreadful truth of environment change. 
It's a reality that I live here in Delhi. My city is among the most polluted cities in the world.  
My contention is this: Environment is a living entity. It has its own course. It shares the earth, the space with humanity. 
The two form the ecology. This gross ecology is a combined (and silent) responsibility of environment and humanity.  
What we call natural disasters are the result of disturbance to this ecology. And everytime this ecology is stretched beyond limit humanity is not only to be blamed.  
Sometimes it's humans', sometimes it's environment's.  
Human should learn to live within their own rightful limits, not encroaching into the others territory, which they often do. And this lends justification to passing the buck to the humans always.
We should not however conclude that all the disasters are man-made.  By doing this we presuppose environment is dead. Which it is not. Environment is not a dead entity which gets activated and furious only if humans poke it?
It has its own life. It can disturb itself, it can disturb us.  Let us discuss environment change. Let us accept this reality. 
But let us also recognise environment is a vibrant, a living entity. It can do things, it can undo things.  
Everytime there is an environment-human conflict we need not feel guilty. 
We should recognise that all the disasters are not nature's fury targeted at humans, they are resultant of its own course, at least some of them.