If I Could Paint The Environment?

I am not an artist and so quite incapable of producing any creative project in a physical form on my own, but I do can conjure up pictures in my mind and translate them into works of art that can be hung on any wall. I have always been a lover of nature. I spend a lot of time among hills and valleys where nature is at her pristine best. But lately, such locations are at a premium and the main reason for this sorry state of affairs is the depletion of the environment. I believe that the problem, the greatest single problem that humanity faces today is not anything that the politicians have us think. What is in question is our very existence on this earth, our very survival. Man has survived on this planet, even when the great dinosaurs had died out, become extinct. The instinct for survival is the strongest instinct in any living being. Man survived through the ages because of this and also using his superior intelligence and powers of adaptation. And now it is as if man is bereft of his powers of reasoning, it’s as if he has suddenly succumbed to a death-wish. It’s as if, like the lemmings of the tundra, he is hell bent on committing suicide en masse. If we go on in this crazy manner by the turn of the next century, mankind as specie will have become extinct. If we take preventive action with immediate effect and a long term perspective in view, we can arrest this problem now. But the tragic thing about it is the fact that there is only one group of people who can really help in this matter and those are the politicians. In a way, you cannot blame them. All their actions are governed by their tenure of five years sometimes even less in these times of political uncertainty. Their imagination refuses to stretch beyond this time limit, with the result that they cannot or are afraid to make any long-term decision. In the meantime humanity suffers. In spite of the warnings of experts, these politicians refuse to see the problem that is facing all living beings, for what it is. And in collusion with some greedy, grabbing industrialists, they are hell bent on destroying life, the most fragile, the most divine of all things on earth. The warnings of the experts are just scoffed at.
Before too long, our atmosphere will become piss and shit. Depletion of the Ozone layer will cause skin caner. It’s already evident in certain countries of the Northern Hemisphere. Millimeter by millimeter, the sea level is rising and cities lying along the sea - as most of them are - will be inundated, under water. Soon we’ll have to wear oxygen masks as if we are on a lunar landscape. The decimation of forests will bring down the oxygen level and the building of dams will release lethal doses of methane into the already dying environment. And the fact of the matter is that all these processes are under way NOW! And the world suffers in the meantime.
None can deny the fact the artists can help to make this change if he is conscientious enough. Now thanks to the progress in field of visual propagation of ideas, any novel method is widely talked about and intensely discussed. To this end I would do a lot of paintings. It shall be painted in loud, basic colors on large canvasses that can fill a wall like the frescoes of Renaissance Italy. I do not want to make these paintings seem sophisticated and so outside the ambit of the common man. But I shall endow them with enough artistic touch, so that they do not seem too prosaic or mediocre. I prefer the style of the great Spanish painter Salvatore Dali some of whose paintings have helped to make evil things seem shocking and thereby making them abhorrent and in very bad taste. I want to shock the conscience of the world with the kind paintings that would shake them out of their lethargies and wake up into action. I will try to make my works of art shown all across the world, exhibited in museums, universities, public squares and the like, where people has the tendency to flock in large numbers. I will use the good offices of institutions like the United Nations to make this effort worldwide.
I will also seek the help of artists around the globe by requesting them to come forward voluntarily and help in this great cause of maintaining this beautiful orange-blue planet as a haven of beauty and quite free from all those malignant miasmas that pervade the present day environment.

Environmental Doomsday

Pay Heed, for The Brink is At Hand.

The recent article by Carlos Pascual and Strobe Talbot in The Washington Post is an eye opener. The skeptics, ‘the procrastinators and backsliders’ like President Bush do well to read and understand the prophetic article and press themselves into action. Although it is not too late, there is hardly any time left either. Carbon particles in diverse forms continue to be spewed into the already dying atmosphere. The main culprits of the piece are Europe, China and India, led inexorably by the main culprit the US of A. President Bush who could have had a place in history if he had followed a more realistic and wiser policy; instead he chose to follow an “ ‘anti policy’ based on a combination of denial, procrastination and backsliding.”
Under the circumstances the initiative should come from the USA along with Europe, China and India. The whole world tends to follow America. So they should leave off this Pied Piper Syndrome by changing their wasteful way of life drastically and set an example for others to follow.
I have already dealt with the subject in my first post. Actually it is a quote from my novel The Vertical Truth. It is not a work on environment. I have been so constrained by the bleak environmental prospects that loom ahead like doomsday that I made the protagonist mouth those words.
Developing countries like China and India are going all out in their misplaced efforts to attain industrialization, little realizing that their united hands are about to remove the lid off the Pandora’s Box. Inevitably, the Cornucopia they hope to attain will turn out to be a Chimera.
India bemoans the fate of the insipid Nano at Singur in West Bengal without being able to foresee the catastrophe the small car, mass produced to perdition will cause. What we need is not increasing the number of the internal combustion engines that pukes pollution, but to find alternate ways to achieve development goals so that the atmosphere won’t become filled with piss and shit. The ambitious politicians in collusion with some greedy industrialists are hell bent on destroying the delicate balance that keeps the fragile system going. The warnings of the experts are just laughed off.
With what result? Messrs Pascual and Talbot predict that the pride of USA, the Manhattan will be under water. Florida will fare no better. What about the poverty stricken Bangladesh and Mali do when they cannot in any way cope with the overpowering change? The writers rightly warn us that we are on ‘the brink’ and “the world should act quickly if it is to avert a potential catastrophe.”
Let’s hope that whoever wins the presidential race in the USA, “the wisdom of the next president and his fellow leaders around the word plays off in the ultimate reward – survival.” McCain or Obama, the next American president will have to decide with foresight and wisdom so that their coming generations along with all other coming generations can call God’s green Earth home and a safe, inhabitable one at that.

Killing of Dolphins

A REQUIEM FOR THE DARLING DOLPHIN.

Dolphins are the most harmless of creatures. They are friendly, gregarious and very playful. We have even heard of instances of the lovely fish rescuing men. But what if somebody tells you that these charming fish are slaughtered. I for one was shocked to my skeleton. To harm them is like killing a mocking bird. So who are the heartless villains who commit such infamous deeds?

It is happening in Vizag on the South Eastern coast of India. The Indian newspaper The Hindu reports that ‘dolphins and sharks may soon disappear from the Bay of Bengal off the Vizag coast.’

After the heartrending ‘Colin episode’, this story is too much to bear.

Dolphins are often seen cavorting playfully along this coast, but sadly few are in evidence these days. And who are the villains of the piece? Mechanized boats according to The Hindu.

A study conducted by researchers based at The Andhra University reveals that the populations of dolphins, like the bottle-nosed and spinner varieties are being depleted at alarmingly proportions. It is true, habitat loss and pollution are some of the causes. But the prime cause lies elsewhere. Commercial fishermen are to blame for this wanton destruction. They catch them along with other kinds of fish.

An increase in the rate of tuna fishing is the contributing cause. Since tuna and dolphins occupy the same locales, presence of the latter is a sure sign of the former. And when these fishermen go in for the kill, they slaughter the dolphins also. These unscrupulous fellows are in the habit of eating dolphin meat and the leftovers are used as bait to catch tuna.

Since they are gregarious, they approach the fishing boats in a playful manner and get caught in the gill and purse-seine nets. No wonder dead dolphins are often washed up on the shore. The presence of the big ships and trawlers and ever increasing port traffic add to the woes of these fine animals. Worst of all, the utter lack of policing activities also contribute to the death of the valuable specimens, according to The Hindu.

I request nature lovers in and around Vizag to take up the matter and do all they can to stop this heinous practice. I request all Indians to protest vociferously through any medium they can so that these fine mammals are left to themselves and is not molested in any way.

IT IS MY BELIEF THAT MAN HAS BECOME A PEST ON THE FACE OF THE PLANET.