Eminent scientists and others are increasingly warning that the basic life-nurturing conditions of the earth are very seriously threatened. In 2019, I humbly but sincerely initiated the Save the Earth Now Campaign and wrote five books on the subject in English and Hindi. The campaign statement emphasized that the task of protecting life-nurturing conditions must be carried forward within a framework of justice, peace and democracy. The immediate demand was that the decade 2020-30 be declared a decade for saving and protecting the earth and its life.
If this demand were presented today, it would be for declaring 2027-37 as the decade for saving and protecting the earth. As in 2019, it is hoped that such a declaration can lead to a wide range of new, sustained social activities for protecting life-nurturing conditions. These would stress the urgency of survival tasks and involve the youth in particular, whose entire lives lie ahead and who must be protected from the biggest threats.
However, a mid-decade review of the issues central to this campaign is likely to produce widespread agreement that, instead of highly committed work and cooperation at the world level leading to improvements, the situation has worsened almost across the board. Several countries can point to their climate response reports and similar documents to claim, to varying degrees, that they have done well. But a more comprehensive review of the nearly dozen serious environmental problems, led by climate change, that form one aspect of the survival crisis would show that the world situation is worsening. In some respects the world is moving closer to the much-feared tipping points beyond which some environmental crises, including climate change, can spiral out of control.
The second aspect of the existential crisis, weapons of mass destruction, has seen even greater escalation. Several experts say the risk of nuclear war may be at an all-time high, on more than one front. Risks of proliferation have also increased. There are growing moves towards space warfare, and despite the ban on biological weapons, some experts point to rising risks in this area too.
At the third level of the survival crisis, the situation is again worsening, in the context of disruptive technologies (one much-discussed aspect being certain forms of AI) and harmful research (one neglected example being gain-of-function research).
While these three aspects are at least discussed as part of the survival crisis, other aspects receive far less attention. Imperialism and the pursuit of hegemony are becoming more arrogant, arbitrary and ruthless, with less and less concern for international law and ethical norms. This is a very high-risk situation in itself, and we must also ask how the risks of weapons of mass destruction increase most under such conditions.
The neglect of these aspects is part of a wider problem. When these vital survival issues are discussed seriously at all, they are often discussed with a western bias. As a result, the organizations most identified with their serious study failed to give timely warnings about disruptive developments such as the eastward expansion of NATO, which substantially increased the risk of nuclear war. An unbiased examination of the most dangerous developments involves criticism of the interests of imperialism. Organizations that are otherwise well-intentioned and well-informed, but restricted by their funding and other limitations from telling the whole truth, cannot give such warnings in time. Their bias also leads them towards analysis from which the most justice-based solutions fail to emerge.
Thus, on the most important issues of protecting the earth's life-nurturing conditions, there are several well-informed and timely warnings, but a glaring shortage of the kind of solutions likely to be most effective. There is also no comprehensive understanding of the various serious problems and their interrelationships, particularly the inability to link socio-economic and political issues with scientific and technological ones.
In this situation, there is a clear need at this mid-decade point to reassert the demand for giving the highest priority to saving the basic life-nurturing conditions of the earth within a framework of justice, peace and democracy, and to declare the next decade a decade for saving the earth and its life. The hope of protecting life-nurturing conditions, and thereby ensuring a safer future for children and youth, can still be kept alive by working with very high commitment and cooperation for justice, peace and the protection of the environment.
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The writer is Honorary Convener, Campaign to Save Earth Now. His recent books include Protecting Earth for Children, Planet in Peril and Man over Machine. His website is bharatdogra.in and his YouTube channel is Bharat Dogra | Save Earth Campaign
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