Growth without consciousness is not sustainable
Material development is the buzzword today and the measuring rod for every economy, but do we ever try to calculate the massive cost that it involves in terms of balanced ecosystem, social harmony and fulfillment of basic needs of all?
MAN IS considered to be the most intelligent being on earth for his intellectual potency. Man successfully understood the secrets of nature and applied the gathered knowledge to serve his interests in the best manner. The so-called development, no doubt is bestowing upon man umpteen sources of comfort and pleasure. But all this is being acquired by us at an awful price; no matter we remain in the mode of denial. The foremost victim is our fragile environment which is being incessantly degraded by the man's voracity. Depleting natural resources, deforestation, pollution of numerous kinds and the recent challenge of global warming pose direct threat to existence of life itself but we seem to be in no mood to save our ecosystem. Much of our biodiversity has already been lost and another part is just on the verge of extinction. Earth can at most sustain the present figure of six billion people only but we are simply expanding unremittingly. One wonders how his development tactics' would accommodate the space for extra men. Man has also devised deadly weapons of mass destruction which have got accumulated all over the world to an extent that can blow up the whole planet several times. He is blatantly moving on the path of self destruction, short of realising the fact. The current monster of terrorism is also one of the fall outs of our development in every sense.
Socially, the relentless trend of materialism has weaned the society of its moral and ethical values. Hedonism has led to excruciating scenario of corruption and related perversions, widening gulf between have and have-nots and erosion of humane considerations. 50 per cent of world's people own merely five per cent of land while top twenty rich people would be possessing nearly 60 per cent of the planet's wealth.
On one side, one billion of total population remains hungry every day and on other hand, the posh few sections throw the same amount of food required as by the poor, in the dustbins. Economically, people sanctimoniously tend to live beyond their means and eventually land up in ruin as was vouched by the latest global recession. The human population is expected to rise by 30 per cent by the year 2050 and income would increase five times but two third of that population increase would remain deprived of any of the development benefits. The air around us is yet breathable probably because the poor still constitutes the maximum chunk, which has no contribution to polluting vehicles, green house gases' emitting refrigerators and the wasteful fuel consumption. But the crucial question is what type of growth we are planning to hand over to our progeny. They surely deserve sustainable development and the growth that is spread equally across regions and social strata.
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