What is progress? Since the eighteenth century Enlightenment era, this question has haunted humanity. As the rational, logical mind started superseding the softer inner self thence, egotism, both at the individual and the societal levels, evolved abundantly. Technological developments, cushioned by the capitalistic forces, fed in to this narrow vision.
As a result, development started meaning an instrumental approach to everything and everyone. Exploiting nature and others for the immediate, miniscule, self-centred profits meant progress and development.
Such a framework has resulted in a threat to sustainability. Nature seems to be grieving the (in)human inroads in to everything natural. Hence the need to raise awareness that total destruction awaits us if human-beings continue to follow such a path.
Since 1972, the U.N. has been celebrating the World Environment Day. The urgency, however, is felt more and more as we proceed further in to the twenty-first century. Flora and fauna as well as the aboriginals are the species we are making extinct. Given the notion of the food chain, such extinctions actually lead to our own destruction!
Even a kid today knows about the u/v ray's, the carbon footprint, the flash floods, the forest fires, the soil erosion, and so on. Why repeat all that shebang? Instead, let each one of us do at least the following, and soon "earth will not have anything more fair to show": 1) planting and caring for at least three plants 2) insisting on rain water harvesting 3) car pools 4) not using a vehicle for a minor errand 5) insisting on alternative sources of energy such as the solar energy.
Pratima@ The best change always begins with our own selves, right? So a small but sure step towards the final goai!
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