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.