In the recent local news, I came across an extremely disturbing and hideous piece of offense in which some crooks killed a Spotted Deer (Chital) and cut off its Antlers from its head for making few quick bucks in exchange of them. This incidence is not only symbolic of what life has reduced the human species to but also underlines the sheer ruthlessness and indifference humans have grown towards other species of their ecology as well as the Environment they are part of.
Environment is of three types as far as my knowledge, belief and understanding is concerned. Natural one, that is the Earth and every element of its ecosystem that upholds the existence of it as the only Livable and Sustainable Planet (at least till this moment and within the boundaries of human comprehension, forget the Aliens they are the copyright of Hollywood!) of its Galaxy. This is termed as the ‘Natural Environment’, irrespective of the human evolution as it was there for billions of years before human existence and would be there for trillions of years after the extinction of human species. In fact, this environment doesn’t even bother to take into account existence of a species called ‘human’ unless human tries to imbalance its ecology by crossing the limits (which it seems to have done already), when the Natural Environment will bring on the ‘correction’ to restore its equilibrium and stabilize the food chain, remember the Dinosaurs…?
Come to the Human World and we have two more types of Environments in it, both manmade. The first here is physical but ‘Conditioned’, as in ‘Air-conditioned’. Human, assuming it a birthright, decided to create compartments of different types, size, shapes and categories for varied purposes right from a Garbage Field or Dumping Ground / Scrap-yard to Fish and Meat Market to Motor Garage to Tall Buildings with soundproof air-conditioned cabins on their top floor with a glazed façade on exterior. All these ‘well-planned’ and ‘aesthetically designed’ spaces formed the Modern Urban Culture of living in the silos by turning the back to the ‘outer world’ and, in addition to contributing to the GDP, had their major share of polluting the air, water, climate and Environment as a whole.
The list of harms that the sophisticated living tools do to the Environment is bigger than the volume of contamination it causes, but it would suffice as an example to get the idea that centralized air conditioning draws the hot air in a closed space and releases it in the outer atmosphere through exhaust channels so does the vehicle mufflers. It’s a different story that the harmful effects conditioned air causes to the bone structure either could not be grasped by the human intellect or that same intellect considers treatment for it as another tool to raise the GDP by mobilizing the pharmaceutical and medical industry, I don’t know! And there is no need to even talk about water pollution, just a glance at our rivers – once lifelines of civilization that we have turned into waste-lines of modern living – and the picture is clear, the water stream is not though!
The Third Environment (Second of the Human world) is Virtual, Intangible and Make-believe yet most fatal. It is the set of conditions imagined, envisaged and developed by the human brain / mind for its ‘wellbeing’, ‘contentment’ or ‘satisfaction’. It starts as thoughts conceived by the mind and the problem starts with the attachment of mind with the thought. The moment mind learns to detach itself from the thoughts of brain and observe them in total neutrality, if not equanimity, it starts its journey on the philosophical path that leads to spirituality. But alas, this is quite an idealistic view of human mind-work and instead it prefers to attach to each and every thought, object and element of material nature. The process of craving, experiencing, being fed up and longing becomes a cyclic trap that is difficult, if not impossible, for an average human mind to escape and it provides an illusory space for mind’s imagination where it nurtures the thoughts in form of desires and creates an environment of its own in process. This conspiring Mental Environment is the most dangerous and governs the other two to the point of forcing its followers to indulge in transgressions like the one this post is started with.
Today is World Environment Day and this write-up is intended to shed some light on the concept of Environment and spread awareness about its protection. Environment is everybody’s responsibility and nobody can get away by saying, ‘It’s not my Job…!’ or ‘What can I do…?’ The least anybody can do is reducing the Environmental (Popularly referred to as ‘Carbon’) footprint by R3 formula of Reduce, Reuse and Recycle and at least start considering commitment to ‘Enoughism'!
Mother Earth has given us everything including the life itself and has suffered severely in process. It’s our turn to take better care of her; celebrating the WED is just a pointer and reminder!
Today is World Environment Day and this write-up is intended to shed some light on the concept of Environment and spread awareness about its protection. Environment is everybody’s responsibility and nobody can get away by saying, ‘It’s not my Job…!’ or ‘What can I do…?’ The least anybody can do is reducing the Environmental (Popularly referred to as ‘Carbon’) footprint by R3 formula of Reduce, Reuse and Recycle and at least start considering commitment to ‘Enoughism'!
Mother Earth has given us everything including the life itself and has suffered severely in process. It’s our turn to take better care of her; celebrating the WED is just a pointer and reminder!
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