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The Ailing Planet: the Green Movement’s Role PDF Free Download
Chapter 5: The Ailing Planet: the Green Movement’s Role
ONE cannot recall any movement in world history which has gripped the imagination of the entire human race so completely and so rapidly as the Green Movement which started nearly twenty-five years ago. In 1972 the world’s first nationwide Green party was founded in New Zealand. Since then, the movement has not looked back.
We have shifted — one hopes, irrevocably — from the mechanistic view to a holistic and ecological view of the world. It is a shift in human perceptions as revolutionary as that introduced by Copernicus who taught mankind in the sixteenth century that the earth and the other planets revolved round the sun.
For the first time in human history, there is a growing worldwide consciousness that the earth itself is a living organism — an enormous being of which we are parts. It has its own metabolic needs and vital processes which need to be respected and preserved. The earth’s vital signs reveal a patient in declining health.
We have begun to realise our ethical obligations to be good stewards of the planet and responsible trustees of the legacy to future generations. The concept of sustainable development was popularised in 1987 by the World Commission on Environment and Development.
In its report it defined the idea as “Development that meets the needs of the present, without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs”, i.e., without stripping the natural world of resources future generations would need. In the zoo at Lusaka, Zambia, there is a cage where the notice reads, ‘The world’s most dangerous animal’. Inside the cage there is no animal but a mirror where you see yourself.
Thanks to the efforts of a number of agencies in different countries, a new awareness has now dawned upon the most dangerous animal in the world. He has realised the wisdom of shifting from a system based on domination to one based on partnership. Scientists have catalogued about 1.4 million living species with which mankind shares the earth.
Estimates vary widely as regards the still-uncatalogued living species — biologists reckon that about three to a hundred million other living species still languish unnamed in ignominious darkness.
One of the early international commissions which dealt, inter alia, with the question of ecology and environment was the Brandt Commission which had a distinguished Indian as one of its members — Mr L.K. Jha. The First Brandt Report raised the question — “Are we to leave our successors a scorched planet of advancing deserts, impoverished landscapes and ailing environment?” Mr Lester R. Brown in his thoughtful book, The Global Economic Prospect, points out that the earth’s principal biological systems are four — fisheries, forests, grasslands, and croplands — and they form the foundation of the global economic system.
In addition to supplying our food, these four systems provide virtually all the raw materials for industry except minerals and petroleum-derived synthetics. In large areas of the world, human claims on these systems are reaching an unsustainable level, a point where their productivity is being impaired.
When this happens, fisheries collapse, forests disappear, grasslands are converted into barren wastelands, and croplands deteriorate. In a protein-conscious and protein hungry world, over-fishing is common every day.
In poor countries, local forests are being decimated in order to procure firewood for cooking. In some places, firewood has become so expensive that “what goes under the pot now costs more than what goes inside it”. Since the tropical forest is, in the words of Dr Myers, “the powerhouse of evolution”, several species of life face extinction as a result of its destruction. It has been well said that forests precede mankind; deserts follow.
The world’s ancient patrimony of tropical forests is now eroding at the rate of forty to fifty million acres a year, and the growing use of dung for burning deprives the soil of an important natural fertiliser.
The World Bank estimates that a five-fold increase in the rate of forest planting is needed to cope with the expected fuelwood demand in the year 2000. James Speth, the President of the World Resources Institute, said the other day, “We were saying that we are losing the forests at an acre a second, but it is much closer to an acre-and-a-half to a second”.
Article 48A of the Constitution of India provides that “the State shall endeavour to protect and improve the environment and to safeguard the forests and wildlife of the country”.
But what causes endless anguish is the fact that laws are never respected nor enforced in India. (For instance, the Constitution says that casteism, untouchability and bonded labour shall be abolished, but they flourish shamelessly even after forty-four years of the operation of the Constitution.) A recent report of our Parliament’s Estimates Committee has highlighted the near-catastrophic depletion of India’s forests over the last four decades.
India, according to reliable data, is losing its forests at the rate of 3.7 million acres a year. Large areas, officially designated as forest land, “are already virtually treeless”. The actual loss of forests is estimated to be about eight times the rate indicated by government statistics.
| Author | NCERT |
| Language | English |
| No. of Pages | 7 |
| PDF Size | 0.1 MB |
| Category | English |
| Source/Credits | ncert.nic.in |
NCERT Solutions Class 11 English Chapter 5 The Ailing Planet: the Green Movement’s Role
1. Locate the lines in the text that support the title ‘The Ailing Planet’.
Answer:
The lines that support the title of the chapter are given below.
“The earth’s vital signs reveal a patient in declining health.”
“Are we to leave our successors a scorched planet of advancing deserts, impoverished landscapes and ailing environment?”
“…the environment has deteriorated so badly that it is “critical‟ in many of the eighty-eight countries investigated”.
“When this happens, fisheries collapse, forests disappear, grasslands are converted into barren wastelands and croplands deteriorate.”
“it has been well said that forests precede mankind, deserts follow”
“ …. Several species of life face extinction as a result of its destruction.”
“The environmental problem does not necessarily signal our demise, it is our passport for the future.”
2. What does the notice ‘The world’s most dangerous animal’ at a cage in the zoo at Lusaka, Zambia, signify?
Answer:
The inscription ‘The world’s most dangerous animal’ in a cage in the Lusaka Zoo in Zambia indicates that man has always been a completely self-centered being. Even though man is civilized and has advanced far beyond all other animals, his vision of a world based on cooperation has yet to take shape.
We humans, like all other beings, want to rule this planet rather than coexist with it. That is why we frequently forget that humans cannot sustain themselves on their own. We must instead learn to live in a way that helps the earth sustain itself and thus helps us sustain ourselves.
3. How are the earth’s principal biological systems being depleted?
Answer:
There are four major biological systems on Earth. Specifically, fisheries, forests, grasslands, and croplands. These four systems are not only the basic systems required for survival, but they are also the primary sources of raw materials for the majority of our needs. In a nutshell, they are the foundation of the global economy. However, with rising protein demands, the demand for fish is increasing all the time.
The fish stock is being depleted in order to meet this demand. Apart from supplying our food, these four systems provide almost all of the raw materials for the industry, with the exception of minerals and petroleum-derived synthetics.
Human demands on these systems have reached an unsustainable level in many parts of the world, reducing their productivity. When this occurs, fisheries fail, forests disappear, grasslands become barren wastelands, and consequently, croplands deteriorate.
Overfishing is a daily occurrence in a protein-conscious and protein-hungry world. Local forests are being decimated in poor countries in order to obtain firewood for cooking. Firewood has become so expensive in some areas that “what goes under the pot now costs more than what goes inside it.”
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