What are we amassing?
The world as a whole is developing, every country wants to be developed. There is nothing wrong in that. Basics of food, clothing and shelter should be taken care for everyone. Though definition of basics has changed and may be different. GDPs have to increase, infrastructure has to improve and growth is required on many parameters. However, seems like the end goal whether individually, country wise or globally is to amass more ‘MONEY’. Some have amassed a lot, for some somewhat and for many it is still a challenge, and the process continues as it has been going on since centuries. But this amassing comes at a cost. We are amassing wealth at the cost of our natural wealth, AIR, WATER, SOIL, GLACIERS, FLORA & FAUNA, FORESTS.
So, we are gathering something which is a man-made concept - money and losing nature’s life giving and life sustaining gifts. Rivers don’t divide, air is not divided, glaciers don’t discriminate, so why do we think that any natural adversity won’t affect me. Natural calamities don’t distinguish between haves and have nots, floods in Europe, wildfires in California, floods in Dubai, drought in African countries, floods in Indian sub-continent, heat wave in France, UK, India. So, everyone gets affected, sooner or later it will affect everyone whether we want to believe it or deny it. It affects every individual’s health on this planet.
We forget that for resources which are contiguous, solutions can’t be piece-meal. Piece-meal solutions may be temporarily helpful and can be started at small scale and scaled up. The entire river system needs to be cleaned, just cleaning a portion will not help; but to make a beginning we can start with a portion and extend it to the entire system. I will buy an air purifier for my home but you will have to step out in the same pollution. You may be staying in a 10-crore apartment or a 100 crore or in one room set. If the ground water is contaminated with pesticides, chemicals etc., the food grown using them will have those chemicals. If river / sea water is dirty, the aquatic beings will have those chemicals and when humans consume that sea food, they will have those chemicals too in their bodies and in higher concentration due to bio-magnification (the concentration of toxic substances such as pesticides, chemicals increase at successive higher levels of a food chain).
You may buy organic food with no chemical sprays but how will you change the ground water or soil conditions, the chemicals which have seeped into our water systems and soil systems over a period of time. Organic farming is good, but again for a contiguous resource it may be piece-meal solution but maybe a beginning towards a complete solution. We need to find and work on holistic solutions while adopting piece-meal solutions as well.
We are being sold illusions, we are believing that ‘I am not getting affected in the comfort of my home or my city’ but we all are and all will be if we do not start implementing real solutions, long term contiguous solutions at a district level, at a country level and ideally at a global level. But the efforts have to start at an individual level and extend to larger level, I will not waste water, I will compost, I will plant trees and plants, I will not waste electricity, I will use less chemicals, I will buy what is necessary.
We may see some elites having very affluent lifestyles with crazy amount of resource consumption and equally crazy amount of wastage but let them not be the role models, let us try to be on the right side of the spectrum and be our own role models. Idea is not to be frugal but be conscious, maintain your lifestyle but don’t overdo it. Let us all do it together. Let us try to save our natural resources and not just amass wealth. Let us amass and save our natural wealth which is getting depleted in the race for amassing fictitious wealth. Let there be a balance!