World Environment Day, 2010

I have been reading the news from America over the past few weeks. You may have heard that on April 20, 2010, a British Petroleum rig that was pumping oil from 1500 meters below the surface exploded. Eleven workers died in the explosion, but the consequences of the explosion are far more drastic: every day millions of liters of oil are literally gushing into the Gulf of Mexico.

This has been going on now for nearly two months now, and despite making efforts, neither the company nor the American government have found a way to contain the leak. The oil and dispersants being used to make it sink to the bottom of the sea are quickly poisoning the entire ecosystem.

The most visible feature--the oil covered birds and other sea creatures, the beaches covered in ugly tarlike substances--are being photographed and publicized. The ecosystem there will be affected for decades; countless species of fish, birds and water mammals will be deprived of proper living space. Some of the most beautiful wildlife preserves in the world with some of the most beautiful creatures that can be found anywhere will be placed in serious danger of survival.

The debate about pumping for oil in the sea, where the consequences of such environmental disasters are so far reaching, rages on in the United States, but still all too few people are ready to face the bitter fact that  their automobile-dominated culture and the resultant dependence on oil is becoming more and more unsustainable.

Here in India, we are currently undergoing the hottest summer since records were first kept. It is not the only place in the world where this heat has reached new levels of intensity. In America also, this is the hottest year since people first started measuring temperatures scientifically. In fact, it is shown that this year, on a global scale nearly every single day has been the hottest on record.

In Vrindavan, the ground water levels have been receding for years. Last year was a difficult growing season for farmers, 30% of crops were ruined due to the lack of rain. But this year, the waters of the Ganga and Yamuna, which are the source of irrigation throughout northern India, are insufficient. Recent reports say that only 50% of the water needed for irrigating the rice paddy nurseries in the Mathura district can be supplied. Villagers everywhere are anxious about water supplies just for their basic needs.

And the problem is not just cyclical, something that we experience here for a year or two, and which will then be gone when normal patterns resume. Normal weather patterns may not resume. The glaciers in the Himalayas that are at the source of the Ganga and Yamuna and the rivers of Panjab, are all disappearing year by year. They may be fully gone in another 20 or 30 years. Then these great rivers will be entirely dependent on annual rainfall for their existence.

Luckily there has been rain over the past few days which may save this year's crops, but global warming is a reality that needs to be reckoned with.

And what is the basic cause of this global warming, whose effects are so visibly being felt more and more? It is primarily our use of fossil fuels. Fossil fuels are being used everywhere, but nowhere more so than in the ubiquitous automobile.

Two other news items come to mind. One is that environment minister Jairam Ramesh recently stated that the chances of a breakthrough in the Cancun conference to combat climate change is very remote, since the big emitters are not willing to make firm commitments to reduce their emissions. So why should the developing countries like India do so? And now, today's papers note that the India federal government is again raising the pump price of consumer gasoline.

Now while all this is going on a global scale -- the costs of the gasoline culture are become more and more apparent in every way, being felt in terms of environmental damage and global warming, and costs to the consumer -- we see that no one is willing to stop the mad rush to destruction that it all entails.

Here, on a much smaller scale, we are worrying about the trees in Vrindavan. But this is merely a footnote in this human intoxicated madness that has been engendered by the so-called progress.

Progress to what? Progress to destruction of the environment. Here in Braj, where we are suffering already due to environmental degradation, and what is the government's solution? Create more degradation by building more roads and destroying more trees.

I could say so much about Vrindavan itself and what it represents, but just try to see this chopping down of a few hundred trees in this little part of the world, which a few people still believe is a sacred, holy place, in the context of a global rush to self destruction.