When mother earth hits back...

"Every action has an equal and opposite reaction", said Issac Newton and this is his 3rd law of motion.  In the 1800s we went down to 69 feet to get some oil.  Now, we dig thousands of feet in to our earth and below our ocean beds and we do this across the world.  By drilling for minerals and oil, by blasting the earth for metals, by cutting down mountains and trees in the name of development, we have set in motion a series of actions.  She has been receiving all this over the years and patiently putting up with our deeds that destroys her slowly and steadily.  Once in a way, she gets upset and decides to teach these stupid kids a lesson.

She was tired of all the drilling that had been happening all over Asia and in the Indian Ocean.  She lazily stretched her arms (I guess) and the shift in the tectonic plates (measured 9.1 on the Richter Scale) ripped through 30 kms of water from beneath the oceans and triggered of a tsunami that created waves of up to 30 metres, earthquakes that could be felt in Alaska and destroyed coastlines in 14 different countries.  The 2004 Tsunami killed over 240,000 people.  All done and over in few minutes!!!  Millions of dollars worth of property destroyed.  The death toll was 80 times the size of the attack on the World Trade Centre in New York on 11 September (please don't mistake me to being insensitive to loss of human lives in New York but was just explaining the scale).

We are the only species credited with the power to think...and, yet, our thoughts seem to be so self-centred.  We kill millions of undersea creatures by conducting nuclear tests, we do deep sea trawling and deep freeze fish that gets eaten after few days/weeks/months, we are probably the only species that kills for entertainment, we do not respect lives of other creatures that live on this earth but expect every other creature to respect our lives.  So, why is a human life more valuable than that of the poor fish that swims happily in the oceans? Have you heard of an animal that kills and stores its food for months before eating?  Have you heard of animals that kill for the sake of pleasure? 

We have now slowly started realising that if we live in harmony with this earth, she will give you much more than what you want.  We call this "sustainability".

Our insatiable need for energy is our biggest reason for digging up our world.  If we decide to invest these dollars towards harnessing the power of the Sun, the Wind, the Oceans, our energy sources will not only be enormous but also completely clean and green.  Instead, we spend millions digging up the earth for coal/oil, create coal based power stations to generate electricity.  We believe that we generate power cheaper with coal than these other natural sources like the sun.  However, if we count the cost of displacement of people as we do indiscriminate mining, the cost of air pollution that causes us to spend millions on treating ourselves for asthma and other lung/body disorders and the real cost of waste disposal, we will hopefully understand that this is really not sustainable and far too expensive.  If she gets angry and decides to stretch her arms once again, the cost we will have to pay will be just far too high.

Governments are battling with companies that mine away in the name of creating wealth but are actually causing maximum damage to our mother earth.  Governments want to charge a special tax on their profits and use that money to fund their schemes for re-settling people, restoring other parts of earth, etc. 

We are marauding mother earth in the name of wealth creation and I believe that the cost we will pay for this will be huge in terms of lives.  Years and years of our efforts will be paid back in minutes!!!