Unworthy tents of this planet

WITH EYES WIDE OPEN

D. N. Bezboruah

In the backyard of my city home, I made a pleasant discovery about a week ago. Amid the rubble of bricks and cement from broken walls there was also a cut branch of a tree that had been felled by a storm. And growing on that dead branch of a tree were beautiful orange-coloured mushrooms. I have never seen such a stunning vivid bright orange colour even on oranges, not to speak of the paintings of great artists. But the beauty of ture’s colours did not fail to convey a message that I was not supposed to miss. It was that ture could choose to treat us with far greater kindness than we deserve. We could cut down a tree, but even its dead branches had ways of creating for us the visual delight of glorious colours never seen before.

This set me thinking on the kind of tents that we human beings are on the only planet that human beings can live on. True, there are speculations about one or two other planets in different galaxies where life might be possible. But in the absence of solid verifiable proof, people like us tend to believe that the Earth is the only planet fit for human habitation. And every time I face up to this reality, I am also convinced that we are unworthy tents of this planet. It does not matter whether we lives in our own homes or as tents in rented lodgings. We are all tents of this planet for as long as we live considering that our very existence, the span of years allotted to us in a lifetime, is so transitory as to be an infinitesimally small fraction of the life of this planet. There is certainly something eterl about a planet that has been spinning around its own axis and also circumambulating around the sun without losing momentum for billions of years. There is nothing eterl about its tents. The only common factors that is alike in all tents is that the they are born one day and are destined to die some other day when they have completed their innings on this planet. Among the billions of inhabitants of this planet there are good souls and bad ones, generous people and misers, highly educated individuals and a whole lot of illiterate people in some countries. But there are very few people who are not subject greed when it comes to human ambitions and aspirations. And it is the sum total of human greed and our intense desire for the good life even at the cost of the impact of such greed on other inhabitants and on the planet that is our home, that takes away the sheen of a good life.

Let us begin with the business of human transportation. There are few people on this earth who do not wish to have some comfortable means of mechanized transportation. People borrow money to buy cars knowing fully well that it will take them years to repay their loans, and that to that extent the quality of their lives will change at least margilly for the worse. And not many buyers of motorcycles or cars stop to think of the huge consumption of fossil fuels that is taking place all over the world every day and polluting the environment. It is not so much the fact that the fossil fuel reserves of the Earth will get used up one of these days considering the colossal consumption of fossil fuels all over the world. What is of great concern is what comes out of the exhaust pipes of motorbikes, scooters, cars, buses and trucks every day. Every day, people are spewing out to the world harmful gases like carbon monoxide. The number of people wearing face masks in the hope of warding off the effects of such poisonous gases is increasing exponentially every day. I am saddened to think of how pathetic and futile such attempts are to ward off the evil effects of such poisonous gases. I am also greatly worried about what such exhaust emissions will do to raise temperatures all over the world. An organization in the US that monitors climate changes all over the world recently reported that September 2016 was the warmest September in about 149 years. Everyone in Assam has noticed how uncomfortably hot September this year was and how the heat of summer has persisted right up to October this year. For several reasons, but principally because of how irresponsibly we burn fossil fuels, the world is becoming a hotter place to live in even though the average increase in temperature might be of the order of just 1° or 2° C.

One of the greatest disservices done to our planet is the depletion of the ozone layer. There is a layer of ozone or O3 gas that protects the Earth from some of the harmful radiations of the sun like ultraviolet (UV) rays. The ozone layer has a great capacity to absorb harmful radiations from the sun that can cause sunburn. Ozone depletion occurs when chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs)—formerly found in aerosol spray cans and refrigerants—are are released into the atmosphere. These gases, through several chemical reactions, cause the ozone molecules to break down, reducing ozone’s ultraviolet radiation-absorbing capacity. With the high proliferation of air-conditioners and refrigerators all over the world, we, the tents of the Earth, have contributed to the creation of gaping holes in the ozone layer. One does not know precisely how many decades or centuries it might take for the ozone layer to get repaired partially. In fact, there is every likelihood of the situation getting even worse since the possession of air-conditioners is partly a matter of ensuring one’s social status. And most people are averse to giving up status symbols—even for a safer world. However, we now have a promise that India will reduce its total number of air-conditioners and refrigerators and other equipment using CFCs or HFCs by 2030. Our experience tells us that such promises relating to the ecology and environment are seldom completely honoured. The countries that have generally ebled the rest of the world to follow their examples are ones like the United States that are also the worst polluters of the environment. Since they are uble to keep the promises to the rest of the world about cutting down on pollution, they set the example to many other countries to also dither on their commitments.

Our third major disservice to Planet Earth is the large-scale reduction of forests and green areas of cities in order to create concrete jungles. In other words, the tents of Planet Earth are cutting down trees and reducing the lungs of cities with great vehemence in order to be able to build more and more concrete apartments to accommodate the population of the world that is increasing at an alarming rate. The cutting down of trees to make room for human habitations greatly upsets the ecological balance that is needed to ensure that the world has its requisite quantum of oxygen for its population. We are all alive today because the trees around us take in the carbon dioxide and release the precious oxygen that keeps us breathing. There has to be a reversal of this trend—of cutting down trees to make room for concrete apartments. We have to find the space, the time, the money and the political will to start a worldwide campaign of planting trees. And instead of being satisfied with the ritual of having planted trees, we have to ensure that the trees planted as part of this worldwide campaign live and grow.

One of the ways of ensuring that we are not burning more fuel to generate electricity, is to go for hydroelectric projects rather than thermal ones. However, this is not always possible or feasible due to the higher initial cost of setting up hydroelectric plants and due to the much longer time it takes to set up hydroelectric projects. However, it is possible to get around this problem by opting for solar power and the generation of power through windmills. It is time governments all over the world gave some thought to having more and more windmills “farms” and electricity generated from solar panels. Such measures, coupled with a firm resolve to bring down the population of the world by encouraging smaller families, will perhaps open up ways in which the present lot of Earth’s unworthy tents can become more responsible ones. After all, it is they who will have to determine how long the only habitable planet that we know of remains habitable and becomes greener with every passing year. The future of the inhabitants of this planet is entirely in their own hands. Just as we do not have another planet that we can migrate to, we obviously cannot expect migrants from another planet coming to tell us how to live as more responsible tents in the only planet available to human beings.