Dear Geologist,

Dear Geologist,
Yes, you are powerful.
You can spot the Gold and the Silver, the precious and the oil.
The world has valued you for last couple of centuries, for your knowledge.
My friend, now is the time, to tell the world.
That there was a lot more that you learned observing mother Earth.
That the metals, and the diamonds might be precious, but the life-forms that we see today, the ecosystems we see today, are even more precious!
That the elements have always been on the planet; but life-forms always belonged only to respective time-brackets.
That their survival, even within 'their' time-bracket, was always subject to their co-existence with the surrounding ecosystems. 
...and that humans are not going to be an exception.
The remaining span of human existence on the planet, - whatever is that number - would be insignificant on Geological time scale (GTS). Be it decades or centuries, mere ticks on GTS, yet would be the time that will matter the most to us humans. Our story will be on the same part of the time line, as of the rest of today's creatures.
Dear Geologist,
Tell the world, you know much more.
Tell the world, you have a clue, about how to extend our last few years.
Tell the world, that getting along with the rest of our 'time-mates' is the only choice we have. Erasing them, one by one, is in fact pushing ourselves towards the inevitable, closer, faster.
Tell the world, shortening their span on time scale, we are only cutting our own short.
Dear Geologist,
You know, you are dearer.
It is the time, to tell the world.

How one can look at any business as a positive activity?

Given the fact that no 'profit' can ever be generated without any 'externalizations' I wonder how any business can be looked at as even a neutral activity, forget about it being a positive. I am not sure how far we can travel in time with our false assumption that the world can endlessly absorb all the externalized costs and allow us making 'profits'. What real benefits the 'profits' bring is another matter. 

Terrorists

I really wonder who are the real terrorists! One county bombed some other country decades ago, which is till date the biggest bombing operation, with bombs per person on the land ratio, even more than any of the events during the World Wars! Even today, present generation in the bombed country is living under the terror of threat of being blown by a bomb in their garden. And now some other countries are being bombed and being threatened to be bombed by the same 'power', for real reasons that appear to be driven by economics and politics rather than 'bringing peace to the (rest of the) world'!

Haves, have-nots, and modern economics

In modern economies, the ‘have-nots’ spend their lives in aspiring to be ‘haves’ and end up only observing and celebrating the affluent and effluent lifestyles of ‘haves’. This economy does not allow proportion of ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’ to deviate from 1: 99. The simple maths it fails to understand is population keeps growing and with that, exponentially, the number of ‘have-nots’. How long would these economies survive against the pressure of billions who are forced with degraded ‘quality of life’ in the search of a mirage called ‘standard of living’…? I suppose what we are witnessing is a birth of that revolt against the modern economies worldover.  

Scale

With every passing day, it is becoming so evident to me that 'scale' is the most important virtue that is required to be considered no matter what you are dealing with. I am getting more and more possessed by the idea that nothing can be sorted out, physical or intangible, without a proper understanding the scope of the scales it is associated with.   

...I struggle to live like a human

I observe the delicate balance of natural systems. The incredible diversity of creatures that maintain the flows within the ecosystems and across them, in the complex tropical forests, in the driest deserts, below the glaciers and at the bottom of the sea. I read about fragile atmosphere of the Earth, held together by the delicate balance of Earth's just appropriate mass and gravity, exact distance from Sun and the perfect mass. I think about the life forms that called this planet home, and perished, only to leave behind a history of billions of years trapped in the sedimentary rocks.

It makes me dumb. Quiet. It becomes difficult for me to live like a human.
I struggle to live like a human...
And then, I look at the ever increasing 'GDP's of countries, the toxic chemical world that the developing and developed modern societies aspiring to get engulfed in, the malls, super markets, oil run trawlers robbing all the creatures of the sea, the countless cattle locked in the feeding quadrates and the cheap 'made in China' cars luring common people to aspire for the luxury. I get confused. I feel ashamed to live like a human.
I plan to research on how one can fasten the restoration of natural processes without any significant external inputs to invite the natural systems back on the devastated mined lands. And I see people passing through the walkway carrying bundles of print outs from the resource room, which I can only hope, they would at least read them all... I get confused. I feel dumb to be a human. I struggle to live like a human.
And then to me, human sorrows don't appear sad enough, joys and victories appear not even worth of a smile, the thoughts, emotions, and my whole existence as a human melts and disappears in thin air... I struggle to live the life of a human.

Sun

I always wondered why the Sun was referred to as the greatest of all Gods for a Hindu. As I grow up and know more and more about the Sun, it is so obvious! I am curious how the wise people from ancient India knew about it all. What I learn with that, is also how it all has been just a matter of chance. You, me, all the life on Earth, and all the life through Geological time of the past and future. Of all the 150 odd moons of solar systems, Earth's Moon is the only one, which along with its parent planet is at the 'exactly right' distance from the Sun and from each other, and are of 'exactly right' size to superimpose onto the Sun so perfectly during an eclipse. The Earth's perfect distance from the Sun, and Earth's own mass, together makes it possible to have the atmospheric envelope and just perfect gravitational pull to have the water preserved on the planet, to support all the life that ever existed on Earth.



Amazing!


So many nights I have spent wondering about this miracle and that boils up the philosophical questions.


Coming back to all these accidents of perfect mass, perfect distances, perfect balance of energy and water to produce further complex accidents like origin of life and its sustenance through Geological time, what do we understand about all these systems?


I sat down to write about how delicately the natural systems are balancing life on the planet, for a period well beyond our imagination and on the scale also beyond our comprehension. Would we ever know enough about how this all works around us and how it all has ben working around the same space over millions of years to be able to predict how it will change in the future to come?


Today as I was looking through the bus window at a small patch of grass on the bank of the Brisbane river and thinking about how everything is bound in a cycle of creation and destruction as I was listening to 'अंत उन्नतीचा पतनी होई या जगात... सर्व संग्रहाचा वत्सा नाश हाच अंत... जीवासमे जन्मे मृत्यू... जोड जन्मजात... दिसे भास ते ते सारे विश्व नाशिवंत...'


For a moment, all the depression captured me and everything from restoration, sustainability and yes, also 'mined land rehabilitation' all started appearing so very futile. A few miserable moments and I recovered myself. Boy, who gives us the right of interfering with the Nature and this whole drama? We, the humans, by no means have a right to disturb the 3.8 billion years rhythm of Nature and start changing things on such enormous scale. We better start putting the pieces of the Lego back, before the Natures discovers who destroyed his castle and breaks us the same way we are breaking his creation - with utmost cruelty and speed!


And as I thought about this, the bus stopped at another bus-stop and I felt huge respect for the tiny ants near the bus - stop moving randomly and haphazardly (to my naive understanding of their system), a creation of a 5 million year old process of Nature...






 

The way ahead...

Unidirectional Economic Development can never bring good days to human society if it is not based on the framework of ecologically sustainable development. The social and environmental issues are always going to spoil the dreams of 'perfect world' and 'perfect economy' if 'development' remains synonymous to 'economic growth'. As a nation, we need to concentrate more on providing for the basic necessities of everyone, including humans and non-humans and not on satisfying 'wants' of the modern economy and people who are blindly passionate about it. Economic growth, capitalism or socialist, none of the theories has ever brought sustainable happiness to any human societies. We have had a history, where we sustained ourselves with the local natural resources we had, for about 5000 years. The times when the economy was 'need based', the disturbance to natural processes was of a smaller scale, mainly because of a 'need - based' economy, and absence of energy intensive technocratic approach towards resource use. Local produce - local consumption and a backing of cultural control over exploitation of natural resource helped to shape the sustainable living. This all is in great contrast to the present day conventional economic systems that are based on maximum exploitation and limitless consumption. Analysis of the present natural, environmental, social, economical systems, the future shaping forces and future trends pose a challenge in front of the nation. With the growing population and ever increasing greed created by market economy will exponentially increase the stress on the natural systems of our landscapes; and hence on the 'natural resource and support systems'. With the new government coming to power, we have another chance to redirect the ship. We should recognise the need of this hour as a responsibility of not only the new Government but each and every individual.

'Unwanted'

'Does a fragment of a rock ever feel it is unwanted in this world?' This question came to my mind when I was engrossed in some personal thoughts. Well, when 'I' say this, it means it is a question a human has encountered while looking at the world and the fragment of the rock from the eyes of a human. Many a times we take too many things for granted. Like for instance attaching human emotions to natural objects. The natural world is still a mystery for humans. Is it emotionless or does it express emotions in languages unknown to humans? People have researched about if all the mothers really share some 'emotions' about their calves or is it just a programmed behaviour generated for the sole purpose of survival and well being of the calf. Do elephants morn over their dead fellow companions?

'Feelings' and 'Emotions'. Do the living beings and the non-living have their own 'emotional worlds'? The science says it is all the game of chemical reactions. And what we may call as 'programmed behaviour' is nothing but a series of chemical reactions as are the human 'emotions and feelings' that do the similar function... (?) ...looking after the well being of the particular human being? Rather it is more directed towards the well being of the community. However, we often see that in case of humans, the bearing and display of the emotions for certain individuals does not necessarily play a huge role in well being of the community. In case of other living beings, on a greater canvas, looking at the big picture, it does contribute to well being of the community. This takes me again to the same question. Are humans part of Nature?

In case of all the living and non living earthlings, all the behaviours, interactions, happenings and 'living' is a part of the huge cycles of natural processes functioning with a single aim of continuation of the exchange of matter and energy, to reduce the entropy. The individuals and their individual experiences, be it living beings or rock fragments, do not really matter much in the 'Drama of the Planet'. This appears to be very close to the experiences, feelings, emotions and 'living' of humans in the human world. The only difference is, the human world, even in the big picture, does not make much sense in moving in any particular direction with a single aim. The activities do suggest it encourages destruction of the natural systems and natural processes, may it not be the aim of it.

And to think about the rock fragment, I believe (although again being a human), it may not feel 'unwanted' in the world. It must know, it is only a matter of 'time'.... be it Geological time...

Global Economical Crisis & the Environment

The fear of the global economical crisis has gripped all the developed nations, and is spreading very fast in the developing nations as well, including India. The scholars and experts of economics are debating about the possible causes, effects and solutions to the problem. They say this problem has done one good thing for sure, that it has brought the world together to make a united effort to solve this crisis.

Whatever are the causes of the problem in economic terms, when we look at the human history, especially the birth of economics through its development to the present day, one thing appears to stand out. In simple words the basic difference between Nature's Economics and the modern market oriented economics separates the humans from the other creatures that are playing their roles in the efficient and most economical ecosystems. The departure from cyclic natural processes of generation, consumption and recycling of every bit of matter and energy involved into the process to the unidirectional human production - distribution - consumption - waste production systems holds the key for such failures. It not only derails the rhythmic recycling that achieves highest efficiency with the available matter and energy, but also sets on the snowball effect by developing systems that work relentlessly to develop newer and newer 'wants' of the 'consumers' demanding for more and more raw material and energy that will very soon, no longer be available on this planet in usable form.

With my limited knowledge of economics, I may not understand this moment how the solutions for the problem can be developed. But I guess it won't be a surprise if the environment itself is again made to pay the cost for the economic restoration. With Australian Government being forced to consider the amendments in the carbon credit scheme, it would be an obvious trend world over to see the conservation takes the back stage and the resources towards betterment of the environment may start freezing.

On the other hand, I feel, as the resources for the development go on shrinking, more and more chunks of landscapes may escape the system of 'development' and would be left to themselves. The stress of the huge human population that would struggle to satisfy their basic needs will always be there on these landscapes. But it could also give an opportunity for the natural processes to rejuvenate. In fact if the Government has the vision and wisdom, this could be a great opportunity to restore our natural capital and carve new sustainable economic policies. Policies that may follow the rules of Nature's Economics and would provide higher 'resilience' to the national economics.