Earth-Are we decimating our own home?
Hello all,
Namaste! Before proceeding with the post, just an announcement. I am planning to go back to the Google feedburner email subsciption service and planning to shut down the Specific feeds email feed. I find that the specific feeds, is coming with numerous advertisements below the particular blogpost. I don't like my subscribers to be bogged down with the advertisements. For that matter, I myself don't like advertisements. So, I should not bother my dear subscribers with random advertisements from a feed service. So, please watch for an email from Google feedburner soon and resubscribe again to my blog. Thank you for your cooperation.
Hope you had a great week where you were able to find the self-trust to take the exact actions that are needed for your life to bloom in every direction. Last week we discussed how it is very important to trust ourselves-our intuition, our judgements and our perspectives. These come from our own life experiences as well as deep internal knowledge. Shouldn't we be able to trust it?
Today, I thought let us discuss a topic that is plainly staring at the face of humanity. It is there, whether we acknowledge it or not, accept it or not. The way the climate of Earth is changing that too fast. Last year, I wrote about the floods that took hold of my home state of Kerala in India. There was loss of life as well as huge property and building damage. This year also almost a similar situation, though not as dire as 2018 has happened. In other news, the heat indexes all over the world are rising. The milder climates of Spring and Autumn are disappearing. The glaciers that hold enormous amount of water are fast melting. Amazon rainforests are fast disappearing. This year particularly it has been ravaged by forest fires.
Hello, humanity! Are you listening? What are we doing? We just cannot escape the responsibility of destroying our home. Let us first discuss some history of our blue planet to bring this topic into true perspective. Earth is considered to be at least 4.4 billion years old. So, this planet has been there for the last four billion years. Now, modern humans Homo sapiens evolved around 20,000 years ago. Before that there were other human like species called Australopithecus and Homo eructus.
Any which way we look the humans are a very recent species, some 125,000 to 130,000 years ago. If we divide, 125,000 would come 35,200 times in 4.4 billion. So, 35,200 times 125,000 gives 4.4 billion. Earth has been there much longer than us humans, the most recent species. But in the last 20,000 years we have completely changed the face of the planet. We dig deep holes for crude oil on land as well as ocean. We mine minerals deep from the Earth. Natural gas is taken by fracking mountains. Trees are cut down for timber and furniture. Humans use all our natural resources negligently. Is this the way to treat our own home?
Mythology: Let us delve into some mythology. In many cultures Earth is considered as a mother goddess. In Hinduism, Earth is considered Bhoomi (Earth) Devi (goddess). Bhoomi devi is considered very tolerant and eternally patient. She was the daughter of the sage Kashyapa. She was married to the God Vishnu. Vishnu is the one who maintains the order of the Universe. He is naturally maintaining the Earth as well. So, he is considered the husband of Bhoomi devi. In the story of Varaha avatar of Vishnu, Vishnu as a boar, lifts up the Earth from the deluge. So, Bhudevi is considered especially the consort of Varaha avatar. This is with Hinduism.
Many other cultures as well considers Earth as the mother. In some Andean cultures of South America, Earth is called Pachamama. Inca mythology considers her as a fertility goddess helping in planting and harvesting. Many of the native American cultures also try to live very close to Earth paying their respects. In Greek mythology Earth was considered as Gaia who was the ancestral mother goddess of all Greek gods including Uranus. Many of the ancient cultures had deep respect for the Earth.
In Hinduism for example the temples were built near banyan trees so that people who come to the temple can rest under the tree. Usually there would be small walls built around the tree for people to sit. Temples also had rivers or ponds nearby for people to freshen up or take bath. Christians consider Earth as a gift from God. Taoism asks to live very close to Earth.
From such humans who respected the Earth how did we come to be humans
who are only about progress and wealth, decimating every thing in the
way? For example, we are living in a house. Would we destroy the same house we are living by axing the walls and drilling the floor? That is what we are doing. In our mindless pursuit of modernity and wealth, we are destroying the very giver of our resources.
Geology of Earth: Earth is considered to be made up of tectonic plates. Each plate is the Earth's crust along with the upper most layer called mantle. Like this as of now it is considered that Earth has around nine to ten major plates. Each plate when it merges with the next plate the junction is considered very volatile. As the plate may be very thin in these plate fault lines, the inner volcanic core of Earth can burst out as volcano. Even though we consider Earth as a very stable planet, it is very much an illusion as well. The crust of the Earth is under a delicate balance with the plates existing together as one huge Earth's crust.
In this delicate balance, we, the smart humans come and dig endlessly to our heart's content. When the digging becomes too much the balance gets lost. Earth quakes, sink-holes, land slides and volcanoes are many times the result. During such huge natural disasters we humans becomes helpless flies in front of the wrath of nature. Nowadays aren't we going from one hurricane to the next? One Tsunami to the next? Wild fires. Floods. Land slides. Melting glaciers. Read the article on the glaciers. "Things that normally happen in geologic time are happening during the span of a human lifetime," says Daniel Fagre. You name it, it is there.
Aren't we suffering? Yes, we are. The climate of the Earth is changing. What once was a very hot year in between some twenty years is showing up every year or every other year. Floods have become an everyday happening. Heat indexes are soaring. Forests are disappearing. Cloud cover is thinning. Hope all of you know about the layer of ozone that protects us from cancer causing harmful UV radiations. The rays of the Sun without the Ozone layer is detrimental to the humans. The Ozone layer is getting depleted.
There is another factor that contributes to the climate change. Human consumption. We are voracious consumers of every thing- raw materials, resources and natural habitats. We consume with mindlessness. The energy of Rahu. In Vedic mythology, Rahu is the snake head without a body. He is ever hungry for everything. This is the energy the modern humanity is embracing. We are taking the raw materials and producing cars, mobile phone and computers. Once a product becomes old, it is thrown away to buy a new one. Consumption! We now have no culture of fixing and reusing products.
Modern humanity: We consume everything. We want luxury, convenience, cheap clothes, the latest computers, cool gadgets, and hot cars. The product of consumption is waste. The waste, humanity create is enormous. We buy, use and throw. This creates huge waste of plastics and electronic paraphernalia. These used to be raw materials before in which the gases and minerals were in raw, unused forms. Now it has transformed into waste products. Is it possible to change the waste back into its elemental form? Many times, no. Plastic cannot be turned back into crude oil. The transformation is complete, to another form.
Earth is littered with plastic, and other human consumption waste. Pacific ocean has a huge plastic garbage island. Next the computer and electronic waste. There is a name for it E-waste (Electronic waste). U.N. has published a report on this global hazard. There is a hidden problem with the E-waste. Computers use heavy metals like mercury, cadmium, and lead. This waste is dumped into land fills. It is a fire hazard. Hazard for workers who work here. Above this the metals leaches into the soil and water, contaminating our Earth and water resources. Guess what? The metals that were on the computer and cell phones are now in our bodies through water and food. Fantastic!
The heavy metals are very toxic to the human body. It is nerve, brain, as well as muscle damaging. As the liver and kidneys are the organs that remove toxins from the body, long term exposure to lead and mercury damages the kidney. In modern times the hospitals are filling up with diabetics, and kidney disease as well as dialysis patients. See, how our own mindless activities are coming to bite us? (Now, I truly realize why I had to go through 10-15 years of rigorous Biotechnology training. Only after first understanding myself the facts, I can combine both the spiritual and scientific sides together and argue on a point. The ways of the Divine! The Master of value driven strategy. Nothing goes waste from a Universal sense.)
So, we humans are littering, contaminating, polluting our own home, big time. In the name of progress and technology we are digging a grave for our own dear Earth, the way we have known until now. It is high time we realize this fact. Nobody said we should not use our resources. But we should use the resources in a future friendly, sustainable, energy efficient way. This is the planet that has given us our home. It is our duty to protect and maintain it.
Going green: True. Most of the humans are gentle souls doing their part of taking care of nature as in going green, sustainability and recycling. However, have you heard the proverb, 'A few bad apples spoil the bunch'. It is enough for some 20% of the humans to do mindless things for the whole humanity to suffer.
Aren't we suffering? Yes, we are. The climate of the Earth is changing. What once was a very hot year in between some twenty years is showing up every year or every other year. Hurricanes are happening more frequently. Floods are becoming every day news. There has been an increase in frequency and magnitude of extreme floods according to this paper. Our soil is getting polluted. Our water ways are getting contaminated. Fish and coral reefs are dying in huge scales. Ozone layer is thinning. There is worry about drying up of water resources. Acid rains, land slides, smog, water and air pollution, e-waste, garbage problem, plastic, resource depletion, the list just continues.
If we understand the real problem that is staring at our face, we won't be complacent, sleeping fools. Leaders won't be wasting their time on trade wars, cooked up problems, political and religious shenanigans. Scientists and environmentalists have been giving dire warnings for decades. But global leaders are more interested in maintaining their borders, conducting trade and going about doing every day stump speeches.
But realize! If there is no Earth, but a heat ball like our fore-runner Venus, where are the borders, trade or speeches? We would be humans who are broiling under a blazing Sun, with no trees to give us greenery or water to quench our thirst. Our every day would become maintaining our life in between one disaster to the next. In such a scenario, it doesn't make any sense to conduct trade, have a country or maintain a government. Chaos and struggle would become every day occurence. Here is yet another depressing news.
Am I predicting a Doomsday? No, I am not. But it is high time we become aware of our own home, how we are bent upon destroying it. I have tried to paint many of the scenarios that need immediate attention. Like this there may be thousand others. But as beings who occupy this space, it is our utmost duty to protect it for us and our future generations. We should not be granting our kids a dry, arid planet. If we inherited a vibrant, green planet, shouldn't our future generations also have the luxury of enjoying a greenery laden blue planet? Worth a thought!
I wish you a good weekend and I'll see you next Friday!😉
Next week: The hidden planet in Astrology!
Credits: Images from Wikimedia Commons and Pixabay.com
.
Namaste! Before proceeding with the post, just an announcement. I am planning to go back to the Google feedburner email subsciption service and planning to shut down the Specific feeds email feed. I find that the specific feeds, is coming with numerous advertisements below the particular blogpost. I don't like my subscribers to be bogged down with the advertisements. For that matter, I myself don't like advertisements. So, I should not bother my dear subscribers with random advertisements from a feed service. So, please watch for an email from Google feedburner soon and resubscribe again to my blog. Thank you for your cooperation.
Hope you had a great week where you were able to find the self-trust to take the exact actions that are needed for your life to bloom in every direction. Last week we discussed how it is very important to trust ourselves-our intuition, our judgements and our perspectives. These come from our own life experiences as well as deep internal knowledge. Shouldn't we be able to trust it?
Today, I thought let us discuss a topic that is plainly staring at the face of humanity. It is there, whether we acknowledge it or not, accept it or not. The way the climate of Earth is changing that too fast. Last year, I wrote about the floods that took hold of my home state of Kerala in India. There was loss of life as well as huge property and building damage. This year also almost a similar situation, though not as dire as 2018 has happened. In other news, the heat indexes all over the world are rising. The milder climates of Spring and Autumn are disappearing. The glaciers that hold enormous amount of water are fast melting. Amazon rainforests are fast disappearing. This year particularly it has been ravaged by forest fires.
 |
| Our blue planet! The photo was taken by the crew of Apollo 17 on their way to the Moon. Image credits -Wikimedia Commons |
Any which way we look the humans are a very recent species, some 125,000 to 130,000 years ago. If we divide, 125,000 would come 35,200 times in 4.4 billion. So, 35,200 times 125,000 gives 4.4 billion. Earth has been there much longer than us humans, the most recent species. But in the last 20,000 years we have completely changed the face of the planet. We dig deep holes for crude oil on land as well as ocean. We mine minerals deep from the Earth. Natural gas is taken by fracking mountains. Trees are cut down for timber and furniture. Humans use all our natural resources negligently. Is this the way to treat our own home?
Mythology: Let us delve into some mythology. In many cultures Earth is considered as a mother goddess. In Hinduism, Earth is considered Bhoomi (Earth) Devi (goddess). Bhoomi devi is considered very tolerant and eternally patient. She was the daughter of the sage Kashyapa. She was married to the God Vishnu. Vishnu is the one who maintains the order of the Universe. He is naturally maintaining the Earth as well. So, he is considered the husband of Bhoomi devi. In the story of Varaha avatar of Vishnu, Vishnu as a boar, lifts up the Earth from the deluge. So, Bhudevi is considered especially the consort of Varaha avatar. This is with Hinduism.
 |
| Varaha avatar lifitng Bhudevi (Earth Goddess) from deluge! Image credits - Ms Sarah Welch [CC BY-SA 4.0] |
In Hinduism for example the temples were built near banyan trees so that people who come to the temple can rest under the tree. Usually there would be small walls built around the tree for people to sit. Temples also had rivers or ponds nearby for people to freshen up or take bath. Christians consider Earth as a gift from God. Taoism asks to live very close to Earth.
 |
| Pachamama and Pachapapa Image credits -User:Narkis [CC BY-SA 3.0] |
Geology of Earth: Earth is considered to be made up of tectonic plates. Each plate is the Earth's crust along with the upper most layer called mantle. Like this as of now it is considered that Earth has around nine to ten major plates. Each plate when it merges with the next plate the junction is considered very volatile. As the plate may be very thin in these plate fault lines, the inner volcanic core of Earth can burst out as volcano. Even though we consider Earth as a very stable planet, it is very much an illusion as well. The crust of the Earth is under a delicate balance with the plates existing together as one huge Earth's crust.
In this delicate balance, we, the smart humans come and dig endlessly to our heart's content. When the digging becomes too much the balance gets lost. Earth quakes, sink-holes, land slides and volcanoes are many times the result. During such huge natural disasters we humans becomes helpless flies in front of the wrath of nature. Nowadays aren't we going from one hurricane to the next? One Tsunami to the next? Wild fires. Floods. Land slides. Melting glaciers. Read the article on the glaciers. "Things that normally happen in geologic time are happening during the span of a human lifetime," says Daniel Fagre. You name it, it is there.
 |
| Effect of natural disasters (Oklohoma,USA tornado)! Image credits - Pixabay.com |
Aren't we suffering? Yes, we are. The climate of the Earth is changing. What once was a very hot year in between some twenty years is showing up every year or every other year. Floods have become an everyday happening. Heat indexes are soaring. Forests are disappearing. Cloud cover is thinning. Hope all of you know about the layer of ozone that protects us from cancer causing harmful UV radiations. The rays of the Sun without the Ozone layer is detrimental to the humans. The Ozone layer is getting depleted.
There is another factor that contributes to the climate change. Human consumption. We are voracious consumers of every thing- raw materials, resources and natural habitats. We consume with mindlessness. The energy of Rahu. In Vedic mythology, Rahu is the snake head without a body. He is ever hungry for everything. This is the energy the modern humanity is embracing. We are taking the raw materials and producing cars, mobile phone and computers. Once a product becomes old, it is thrown away to buy a new one. Consumption! We now have no culture of fixing and reusing products.
Modern humanity: We consume everything. We want luxury, convenience, cheap clothes, the latest computers, cool gadgets, and hot cars. The product of consumption is waste. The waste, humanity create is enormous. We buy, use and throw. This creates huge waste of plastics and electronic paraphernalia. These used to be raw materials before in which the gases and minerals were in raw, unused forms. Now it has transformed into waste products. Is it possible to change the waste back into its elemental form? Many times, no. Plastic cannot be turned back into crude oil. The transformation is complete, to another form.
Earth is littered with plastic, and other human consumption waste. Pacific ocean has a huge plastic garbage island. Next the computer and electronic waste. There is a name for it E-waste (Electronic waste). U.N. has published a report on this global hazard. There is a hidden problem with the E-waste. Computers use heavy metals like mercury, cadmium, and lead. This waste is dumped into land fills. It is a fire hazard. Hazard for workers who work here. Above this the metals leaches into the soil and water, contaminating our Earth and water resources. Guess what? The metals that were on the computer and cell phones are now in our bodies through water and food. Fantastic!
 |
| The way humans accumulate garbage! Image credits - Pixabay.com |
The heavy metals are very toxic to the human body. It is nerve, brain, as well as muscle damaging. As the liver and kidneys are the organs that remove toxins from the body, long term exposure to lead and mercury damages the kidney. In modern times the hospitals are filling up with diabetics, and kidney disease as well as dialysis patients. See, how our own mindless activities are coming to bite us? (Now, I truly realize why I had to go through 10-15 years of rigorous Biotechnology training. Only after first understanding myself the facts, I can combine both the spiritual and scientific sides together and argue on a point. The ways of the Divine! The Master of value driven strategy. Nothing goes waste from a Universal sense.)
So, we humans are littering, contaminating, polluting our own home, big time. In the name of progress and technology we are digging a grave for our own dear Earth, the way we have known until now. It is high time we realize this fact. Nobody said we should not use our resources. But we should use the resources in a future friendly, sustainable, energy efficient way. This is the planet that has given us our home. It is our duty to protect and maintain it.
Going green: True. Most of the humans are gentle souls doing their part of taking care of nature as in going green, sustainability and recycling. However, have you heard the proverb, 'A few bad apples spoil the bunch'. It is enough for some 20% of the humans to do mindless things for the whole humanity to suffer.
Aren't we suffering? Yes, we are. The climate of the Earth is changing. What once was a very hot year in between some twenty years is showing up every year or every other year. Hurricanes are happening more frequently. Floods are becoming every day news. There has been an increase in frequency and magnitude of extreme floods according to this paper. Our soil is getting polluted. Our water ways are getting contaminated. Fish and coral reefs are dying in huge scales. Ozone layer is thinning. There is worry about drying up of water resources. Acid rains, land slides, smog, water and air pollution, e-waste, garbage problem, plastic, resource depletion, the list just continues.
If we understand the real problem that is staring at our face, we won't be complacent, sleeping fools. Leaders won't be wasting their time on trade wars, cooked up problems, political and religious shenanigans. Scientists and environmentalists have been giving dire warnings for decades. But global leaders are more interested in maintaining their borders, conducting trade and going about doing every day stump speeches.
 |
| Our gorgeous greenery laden blue planet! Image credits - Pixabay.com |
But realize! If there is no Earth, but a heat ball like our fore-runner Venus, where are the borders, trade or speeches? We would be humans who are broiling under a blazing Sun, with no trees to give us greenery or water to quench our thirst. Our every day would become maintaining our life in between one disaster to the next. In such a scenario, it doesn't make any sense to conduct trade, have a country or maintain a government. Chaos and struggle would become every day occurence. Here is yet another depressing news.
Am I predicting a Doomsday? No, I am not. But it is high time we become aware of our own home, how we are bent upon destroying it. I have tried to paint many of the scenarios that need immediate attention. Like this there may be thousand others. But as beings who occupy this space, it is our utmost duty to protect it for us and our future generations. We should not be granting our kids a dry, arid planet. If we inherited a vibrant, green planet, shouldn't our future generations also have the luxury of enjoying a greenery laden blue planet? Worth a thought!
I wish you a good weekend and I'll see you next Friday!😉
Next week: The hidden planet in Astrology!
Credits: Images from Wikimedia Commons and Pixabay.com
.
![Ms Sarah Welch [CC BY-SA 4.0]](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:7th_century_Vishnu_avatar_Varaha_with_goddess_earth_(Bhudevi)_legend_in_Cave_2,_Badami_Hindu_cave_temple_Karnataka.jpg){kind=link}
![Narkis [CC BY-SA 3.0]](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pachamama_%26_pachapapa.jpeg){kind=link}
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