Is it only nature?
Sipping a cup of ‘Tea in the morning’, when you open the daily; somewhere on the front page you notice a news spotlighting about climate change and environment impact. Frequently this negative impact on Earth’s environment turns into a catastrophe. “It’s very distressing to see that humans die due to human induced activities” As a follow up, few government officials are held responsible for the disaster and an enquiry committee is being set up. Environmentalist and activists vocalize for making stricter laws to stop exploitation of nature. Government takes their irremissible stand and averts the situation by awarding compensation to the victim families. These are obligatory protocols which are followed throughout the world. We run away from taking responsibility and blame nature; calling it as ‘God’s will’. Is it only nature and not us? The fact of the matter is every one of us is responsible for destroying our environment and giving rise to such situations. Earth cannot take more of human exploitation. Since the time of industrial revolution earth’s resources are being exploited like anything.
A disaster is an occurrence arising with little or no warning. It happens with such a magnitude that it destroys normal life for a long period and requires major effort for the community or country, where it happens, to overcome its effects. “A disaster is serious disruption of the functioning of a society, causing widespread human, material, or environmental losses which exceed the ability of the affected society to cope using only its own resources. Disaster causes devastation to life, property and infrastructure. The intensity of damage depends on the type of disaster and the magnitude of the event and the vulnerability of the region. It is almost impossible to measure the damage caused by a disaster. While losses of physical assets can be calculated, the effect on the disruption of the normal day to day life cannot be estimated. Psychological, socio-economic and cultural damages as well as opportunity loss cannot be calculated in monetary terms. Further, rehabilitation of human beings, resetting up of infrastructure puts a heavy social and economic burden on the victims, thus interrupting and even pushing back the process of development of the region. Unbridled development which affects the environment can cause disasters which again affect development. This setback to development can be reduced to some extent if a disaster is properly managed.
Environment Protection in India and around the world was not taken seriously until recently. A series of man-made disasters have caused us to think over rampant development and exploitation of Earth’s resources. “Nature will treat us the same way we treat her”. Here’s how we’ve been treating nature and how it treats us back! India’s geo-climatic conditions as well as its high degree of socio-economic vulnerability, makes it one of the most disaster prone country in the world. A disaster is an extreme disruption of the functioning of a society that causes widespread human, material, or environmental losses that exceed the ability of the affected society to cope with its own resources. Disasters are sometimes classified according to whether they are “natural” disasters, or “human-made” disasters. For example, disasters caused by floods, droughts, tidal waves and earth tremors are generally considered “natural disasters.” Disasters caused by chemical or industrial accidents, environmental pollution, transport accidents and political unrest are classified as “human-made” or “human induced” disasters since they are the direct result of human action.
A more modern and social understanding of disasters, however, views this distinction as artificial since most disasters result from the action or inaction of people and their social and economic structures. This happens by people living in ways that degrade their environment developing and over populating urban centers, or creating and perpetuating social and economic systems. Communities and population settled in areas susceptible to the impact of a raging river or the violent tremors of the earth are placed in situations of high vulnerability because of their socio-economic conditions. This is compounded by every aspect of nature being subject to seasonal, annual and sudden fluctuations and also due to the unpredictability of the timing, frequency and magnitude of occurrence of the disasters.
It is a very important task of today while the whole human civilization of this planet is undergoing one unprecedented disaster caused by a virus. We are aware of a common fact now that this COVID 2 pandemic is another example of a manmade disaster because either the virus genome is tailor made or may be an outcome of the bad food habit of man. In this scenario the production of Sujalam Sufalam as on line issue will be a very subjective and contemporary. Stay safe and enjoy the life.
