Development versus Environment

What is more important? Development or the environment?

Is it right to sacrifice the environment for the sake of development? After having developed where we are gonna live? In this very ecumene.. aren’t we? Then what is the point of development at the cost of environment?

Is it right to stay where we are? We need development also. Had we been considered only environment, the mankind wouldn’t have evolved at all. Environment issues should be sacrificed for some extent for development because reversing the environment is not so hard. The depleted can be replenished also. Moreover earth can withstand the pollutions caused by developments.

Which side are we in this debacle? Ecology or development. We can’t take a precise stand because what we know about these issues is a little.

The environmental scientists have ample evidence of the withering weather phenomenon of earth. The year 1998 is considered to be hottest of the millennium and 2007 is still hotter than 1998. The average global temperature have risen to 1^`Celcius since  industrial revolution. Consider this my friends-within 220 years earth is heated up for a degree Celsius. Earth as a planet, formed before 450 crore years. The present atmosphere formed before 250 crore years, ie in the Precambrian Era.

Forests are the natural sinks of Carbon di oxide which is an active green house gas. The present composition of CO₂ in the atmosphere is only 0.33%. But this is enough to keep the earth warm to support life. More the CO₂, more the green house effects. 

After having parked a car under the hot sun with its windows closed, if you board the car, you will feel the heat more than outside. Because glass allows the shortwave radiation from the sun, which is converted into long wave radiation (after dissipation of energy).The long wave radiation is not allowed by the glass to escape. This is a continuous process, so that the car gets heated up.

Consider earth as car. The glass is the carbon di oxide layer in the upper atmosphere. This is green house effect.

So CO₂ should be in a balance for the life to survive. Forests do this for us. Plants breathe CO₂ and release Oxygen. We cannot deny the role of green house gases in keeping the earth warm. Without them, the planet earth would have been ice-cold, ie inhospitable for life existence. The green house gases, the result of natural reasons, from volcanoes, Marshy lands, Forest fires etc are sufficient for warming up of the atmosphere, and forests absorb the excessive CO₂ and thus strike a balance. The problem is the anthropo-intervention. Since the industrial revolution, the addition of CO₂ in the atmosphere has been growing exponentially.

The environment-development debate is pursued since 19^th Century. The debate gave environmentalists and developmentalists the face of determinists and possiblists-or rather radicalists and capitalists respectively.

The debate caused cropping up of green parties all over the world including India. Chipko movement, appiko movement etc. Some NGOs are also active in this scene.

There are a lot more to discuss…. We will continue tomorrow.