I marveled at the monsoon,
its amazing ways of bringing down the heavy showers, which we badly needed for
the various crops on lands. Where do these clouds come from? Where do they go? ‘Ammachi’ explained by pointing to the
globe and told us, “At the equator region the sun is very close to the earth.
Due to the extreme heat, the surface water in the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea
gets heated up and the water vapour from this gets transformed into clouds.
This then moves west wards with the help of the winds. The Kilimanjaro Mountain
ranges in Africa stops their further movement to the west and therefore they
reach the Gulf region. The North-west winds would bring them back to Kerala, where
the ‘Sahyadri Mountains and hills’ and their rich flora would stop them and
with the help of cool breeze it would start to rain. Some portion of the rain
water would be drawn down to the earth, which is called the underground water
and the rest would join to form small streams and then rivers and would reach
the lagoons or ‘‘Kayal’, which
ultimately would reach the ocean, the region of its origin.” How correct is the
idiom, “Little drops of water make a mighty ocean.” It is a cyclic movement. If
that is so, the cultural evolution of conserving the whole year’s rainfall in
dams breaks the cyclic movement of water. Isn’t it one of the major reasons for
depletion of icebergs in the Arctic and elsewhere to replenish the loss?
Kalidasa, a great epic writer of Ramayana, cut the
branch of a tree on which he was sitting. It is considered to be one of the
greatest blunders ever known. What are we doing? The tectonic-plates are the
foundation of the surface of the land mass on the earth where the fauna and
flora lives. The surface of the earth is as significant as air, water, fire and
sky or space, which are essential for the existence of life. Ignoring this, the
government licenses issued for granite mining are misused. These granite miners
flagrantly violate the laws of Mother Nature and these environmental
degradation in the forms of abuse and overuse of nature, and create ecological
imbalances.
In comparison to the vastness of the Universe, our
planet is very minute. In comparison to the size of the earth, the human being too
is minute. Beyond his limitations, man tries to create a new order in nature
thinking that he is the Master. He never realizes the fact that his culture is causing
a grave ecological imbalance. Dams and hydroelectric projects and mining of
large quantity of granite in Sahyadri Mountains and hills are blatant examples.
This has resulted in deforestation, erosion, generation of Carbon dioxide, which
contributes to the global warming. The result of this has brought about severe
ground-water shortage in the hills, and floods and famines in the planes. A lot
of forest regions were submerged in the catchment areas of the dams. This resulted
in the extinction of varied flora and fauna. The ancient civilization of Mexico
and Peru are historic examples of the entire civilization becoming extinct with
the destruction of forests.
Human beings have to live in harmony with nature. We
should focus our attention to the urgent need for the conservation of our flora
and fauna and forest wealth and for the preservation of the environment. The
gifts of nature should be enjoyed; if one tries to control or break the chain
of events it may create a calamity.
Excerpts from
NEED OF THE HOUR
by
Joseph J. Thayamkeril
Lawyer, Kochi, Kerala, India.
josephjthayamkeril.blogspot.com
josephjthayamkeril@gmail.com
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