By all indications, it looks like this year’s harvest has not, after all, turned out to be as disastrous as first feared.
The latest incessant spell of fine weather, with lots of sunshine, has helped cereal crops and canola with experts predicting that not only will the yield be higher than early forecasts, but the quality of the crops will also be much better.
We should all be grateful for the good fortunes bestowed upon us by Mother Nature, the very nature that we have been misusing, polluting and exploiting terribly, particularly since the beginning of the Industrial Age.
But the question is how much more we can continue to rely on the good fortunes we may or may not have and when we should really start to make a systematic effort to protect our common global home.
It was only a few days ago that scientists announced their most recent findings which indicate that a 4 degree Celsius increase in the average temperature is likely to come as early as 2060 or 2065. This is only six decades away, which means that today’s new-born generation will suffer all the calamities that will come with that rise in temperature.
And what are the predictions regarding the calamities? A severe shortage of fresh water, a scaring scarcity of food because the fertile farming land in coastal areas throughout the world will have been flooded by rising sea levels, quite possibly wars over control of water and food resources, just to name a few.
It is not uncommon for many people to think that scientific advances will probably find the remedies for the ills that look likely to destroy our way of living.
A recent finding may even encourage people to go the same way we have been for centuries: Just last week, it was announced that the surface of the moon did contain a lot of water and that it had only needed to be squeezed out of the soil just as we do with the oil sands in western Canada.
Way to go.
By the time we will have the suffocating water shortages on Earth, regular trips to the moon will probably have become a daily occurance and we will only need to carry water from the moon.
That pinky line of thinking could relieve us easily from having to think about urgent measures that need to be taken to ensure survival of the human race.
But I dare to say that it is only wishful thinking and whatever needs to be done has to be done without delay.
Once the deterioration of the nature reaches an exponential pace, no technological or scientific advance will be enough to stem the tide.
— Mustafa Eric