I found an article in the paper dated Nov 17, 2010, The Times of India, very amusing indeed! It said that -Officials of the forest are considering Family Planning(Vasectomy) for messy monkeys who stray into the Malnad villages of Uttara Kannada, in order to contain their menace, destruction of arecanut, coconut, paddy and sugarcane crops.... Environmentalist Shylaja Gornamane, citing reasons for the serious problem, said monkeys are forced out of forests by people collecting minor forest produce like fruits.
Isn’t it so obvious who the real menace here really are! It is the overpopulated human race which doesn't even spare the fruits in the forest that is the food for the monkeys! . And then we want to "Family Plan" for the monkeys!
Here's some interesting statistics related to population. 'It took about 2 million years for the world population to become 1 billion (1830), 100 years for 2 billion (1930), 30 years for 3 billion (1960), 15 years for 4 billion (1986) and 11 years for 5 billion (1997). The world population stands at 6.3 billion (2000)and is estimated to be around four times of it around 22.5 billion in 2100. In context of India, Post -independent India in 35 years (1947-81)literally added a second India, i.e doubled it's population. When the population doubles, resources do not double and the critical condition in India is that it’s resources can no longer sustain this exploding population. In 2000 India’s population touched 1 billion mark whereas in 1901 it was around 238 million. Although India occupies only 2.4% of the world's land area, it supports over 15% of the world's population. The population growth rate of the world is around 1.1% and that of India is around 1.8%. To achieve population stabilization, the growth rate should be ideally brought below 0.5% which has been achieved by most developed countries.
What is the problem in our country that we cannot contain our population growth? There are actually some very funny reasons!!!
Catholic priests are advising parishioners to have three or more kids as the catholic population in India seems to be reducing. What a way to increase people in a particular faith. Just reproduce more!
One of the Hindu fundamentalist group Bajrangdal dal, during the religion linked riots in Orissa in sept 2008, was reportedly against conversions to Christianity mainly because it would reduce Hindus to a minority and how can that be allowed when according to Hindutva philosophy, India is a land of Hindus!
Muslims reportedly prefer having five or more kids primarily because they want to increase the muslim population!
This attitude of trying to preserve a good measure of one's own religious population is the peculiar bane of the Indian Society. Really now, is our individual religion the only thing worthy of preserving? The land on which we stand, the water that we drink, the air that we breathe, ...don't we owe something to it? How can we claim to love a God we do not see when we cannot love the environment that we can see is suffering from the plunder and exhaustion of resources, and excessive pollution solely because of over population and mindless development of the Human Race.
Now what can the common Indian do to check population growth. Of course reproduction is the right of every Individual, and of course we need not follow any stringent norms like China did. But lets just not let our choice be determined by our religious leanings…Education of women and higher age of marriage has proved to be successful in keeping a low population growth rate in Kerala so far, and it has been an example for the rest of India to follow. But education is often no match to personal religious persuasions. We have to decide our priority here. Lets not let false religious sentiments deviate us from our one true responsibility to humanity and to humanity's only provider…the amazing creation of god called Earth. We owe it to our God to preserve it's most beautiful creation, the Earth, no not the umpteen religions which man created just so he won't die of boredom with nothing to argue about.....
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
The Ultimate Killer Control- called Ingratitude
I was reading a well written, passionate book related to environment (Our Environment by Laeeq Futehally) and certain thoughts were triggered on reading.. how in a forest all the plants and animals are present in relation to the dominant species! For example in a typical rain forest an almost solid roof is formed by the tops of large trees. The dense mass of leaf material makes a permanent ceiling for the entire forest (since the trees are not deciduous). This prevents direct sunlight from reaching the ground, which means that there is little undergrowth.
It is obvious that because of the dominant tree canopy through out the year, only shade loving plants flourish except in pockets where a tree has fallen and sunlight enters in till the space is filled up again. It is also obvious that according to the dominant flora of a habitat are the fauna that survive in these habitats (animals etc dependent on the plants prevalent in a habitat).So the climax condition in any habitat is very much in accordance with the dominant species.
Nature has always been rearranging itself over its course of evolution according to the dominant species of each time frame. I wouldn’t say therefore that the destruction that has happened of nature is not natural!This may seem an odd statement, but consider this; It is nature’s course to create the environment as per the dominant species, which currently for the largest habitat Earth is Man..
Man has been altering the habitat Earth as per his whims and fancies. Which is in fact quite natural considering that nature created man an intelligent species which had the capability to overcome it’s natural enemies. Though all species occupy their own niche in a habitat in equilibrium, not encroaching on another's territory or food, still it would be wrong to say that it is on account of an all embracing charecteristic of the wild species. There is behind this undeniably the law of the survival of the fittest,which is quite a 'me first'or in other words a selfish charecteristic.In fact two species cannot occupy the same niche (role) for a long time because it results in competition which in turn results in the survival of the fittest and elimination of the other. Selfishness is also therefore a natural trait and each species' populaton is checked by each other's selfishness(more often than not).
Moreover a species that is introduced in an environment where it has no natural enemies, spreads uncontrollably, eating away resources that were for all the inhabitants of the habitat. Like the water hyacinth which is a native of South America brought to India as a garden plant. Having no natural enemies in India, it multiplies at a tremendous rate, and soon covers all of the water surfaces. It is a greedy plant that drinks up all the water of the lake on which it grows quite like man exhausting all the resources that it survives on.. The only difference about Man from the hyacinth, is that Man is a species that has overcome its enemies and therefore has grown in population to such a proportion that it has sapped the life out of its own environment. The plants and animals that can survive are only the one’s that man the dominant species allows to survive, quite like how only shade loving trees can flourish in forest with a thick canopy(although the dominant trees have their own natural controls intact unlike man who has brought under control all it's enemies).
Natural again definitely considering Man's Intelligence, but our intelligence also shows us that unless we check our population and recede our encroaching uncaring steps, we will exhaust the very resources we survive on. For example if the rate at which we consume bamboo for paper is slower than the rate at which we replenish it by planting, then soon we would have to do without paper. Our intelligence is putting efforts to prevent further harm to environment, but the effort is feable compared to the relentless and enormous damage to environment that we do collectively everyday.
Now the ultimate control has to be therefore with nature alone that created all this mess by creating Man. Our dominance of nature has not been against the natural growth and climax in natural habitats, and so it is only natural that there has to be a check not far off in future that is predestined for a species like ours. Aren’t we the dominant species altering our habitat making it unsuitable for our own survival which is what does happen naturally in succession (called reaction) in habitats which eliminates that errant species? Nature has never been helpless;it always has a check for everything, however slow in coming. The exhausting resources will itself check the population growth. Nature may be too loving to do anything overt, it only just recedes to non existence due to lack of love of its inhabitants.
The Natural Killer Control of the Intelligent, powerful, dominating, thoughtless and selfish species therefore,... is it's own ungratefulness! The end of such a greedy species such as water hyacinth and man is in the exhaustion and so destruction…of both; the habitat (nature) and consequently the ungrateful species. This end also looks natural in the whole scheme of things. Everything that has a beginning has a natural end.
Ungratefulness is the ultimate killer, or lets say the ultimate control. It saps the life blood out of the parent, the provider and finally with its death dies the dependent too.. The provider dies a slow death unloved, unappreciated, uncared and abused. Even if we cannot learn to be grateful, still, if we the self loving species have to save ourselves, we have to stop abusing and spitting on our one and only provider, the mother Earth..But then at this uncontrolled pace of human progress we do seem to have gone beyond the point of a ‘comeback’...For there is no killer like the killer called ingratitude. It has a life, movement and all devouring pace of its own that is not checked even by self love.
It is obvious that because of the dominant tree canopy through out the year, only shade loving plants flourish except in pockets where a tree has fallen and sunlight enters in till the space is filled up again. It is also obvious that according to the dominant flora of a habitat are the fauna that survive in these habitats (animals etc dependent on the plants prevalent in a habitat).So the climax condition in any habitat is very much in accordance with the dominant species.
Nature has always been rearranging itself over its course of evolution according to the dominant species of each time frame. I wouldn’t say therefore that the destruction that has happened of nature is not natural!This may seem an odd statement, but consider this; It is nature’s course to create the environment as per the dominant species, which currently for the largest habitat Earth is Man..
Man has been altering the habitat Earth as per his whims and fancies. Which is in fact quite natural considering that nature created man an intelligent species which had the capability to overcome it’s natural enemies. Though all species occupy their own niche in a habitat in equilibrium, not encroaching on another's territory or food, still it would be wrong to say that it is on account of an all embracing charecteristic of the wild species. There is behind this undeniably the law of the survival of the fittest,which is quite a 'me first'or in other words a selfish charecteristic.In fact two species cannot occupy the same niche (role) for a long time because it results in competition which in turn results in the survival of the fittest and elimination of the other. Selfishness is also therefore a natural trait and each species' populaton is checked by each other's selfishness(more often than not).
Moreover a species that is introduced in an environment where it has no natural enemies, spreads uncontrollably, eating away resources that were for all the inhabitants of the habitat. Like the water hyacinth which is a native of South America brought to India as a garden plant. Having no natural enemies in India, it multiplies at a tremendous rate, and soon covers all of the water surfaces. It is a greedy plant that drinks up all the water of the lake on which it grows quite like man exhausting all the resources that it survives on.. The only difference about Man from the hyacinth, is that Man is a species that has overcome its enemies and therefore has grown in population to such a proportion that it has sapped the life out of its own environment. The plants and animals that can survive are only the one’s that man the dominant species allows to survive, quite like how only shade loving trees can flourish in forest with a thick canopy(although the dominant trees have their own natural controls intact unlike man who has brought under control all it's enemies).
Natural again definitely considering Man's Intelligence, but our intelligence also shows us that unless we check our population and recede our encroaching uncaring steps, we will exhaust the very resources we survive on. For example if the rate at which we consume bamboo for paper is slower than the rate at which we replenish it by planting, then soon we would have to do without paper. Our intelligence is putting efforts to prevent further harm to environment, but the effort is feable compared to the relentless and enormous damage to environment that we do collectively everyday.
Now the ultimate control has to be therefore with nature alone that created all this mess by creating Man. Our dominance of nature has not been against the natural growth and climax in natural habitats, and so it is only natural that there has to be a check not far off in future that is predestined for a species like ours. Aren’t we the dominant species altering our habitat making it unsuitable for our own survival which is what does happen naturally in succession (called reaction) in habitats which eliminates that errant species? Nature has never been helpless;it always has a check for everything, however slow in coming. The exhausting resources will itself check the population growth. Nature may be too loving to do anything overt, it only just recedes to non existence due to lack of love of its inhabitants.
The Natural Killer Control of the Intelligent, powerful, dominating, thoughtless and selfish species therefore,... is it's own ungratefulness! The end of such a greedy species such as water hyacinth and man is in the exhaustion and so destruction…of both; the habitat (nature) and consequently the ungrateful species. This end also looks natural in the whole scheme of things. Everything that has a beginning has a natural end.
Ungratefulness is the ultimate killer, or lets say the ultimate control. It saps the life blood out of the parent, the provider and finally with its death dies the dependent too.. The provider dies a slow death unloved, unappreciated, uncared and abused. Even if we cannot learn to be grateful, still, if we the self loving species have to save ourselves, we have to stop abusing and spitting on our one and only provider, the mother Earth..But then at this uncontrolled pace of human progress we do seem to have gone beyond the point of a ‘comeback’...For there is no killer like the killer called ingratitude. It has a life, movement and all devouring pace of its own that is not checked even by self love.
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