The Alternate Sickness

“Hi, Science. How are you?” greeted Nature.

“Hi, Nature. I’m fine thank you. How about you?” asked Science.

“I’m not fine. As you know, I’m changing badly every day, and it’s because of you.”

“Oh! Not again. You always look forward to detest me.”

“No, it’s not fun for me to do so. It is my concern towards my home and you don’t understand it.”

“What did you say? I don’t understand it? It’s you who don’t understand anything, you don’t understand Science. You create calamities and disasters and stand as an obstacle for the development I’m bringing in the world. You don’t have a right to talk about me in the first place,” said Science.

“How dare you talk about my rights? What about the rights that you snatched away from me? Who gave you the right to destroy my home every day? With the pretext of development you’re actually destroying the resources I put in into the Earth. You are so confused. You don’t know what you want. You are greedy and you’re never satisfied of your hunger. As a result you’re consuming me every day.”

“Nonsense. I am destroying you? I’m the one who is actually shaping you up. I invent new things. I make people’s life comfortable. I make them live happily with lots of luxuries and with ease; but you come here and say I’m a destroyer. I pity your ignorance, my dear Nature.”

“Inventions. Luxuries. Comforts. Great words you used. But what did the invention of an Atom bomb do to my home? It killed 166,000 people in Hiroshima and another 80,000 in Nagasaki. What do you call it, a great invention? What did a machine gun do to the world? It consumed countless of lives in the wars fought till date, and the count is still marching forward every day. What do you call it, a luxury? What are the myriad industries and factories doing to the pure Nature today? They are all polluting away the purest form of air ever existed, and eventually polluting people’s lives too. What do you call it, comfort? Now, tell me who is truly ignorant?” asked Nature.

“I made people rich. I made technological innovations. I made machines that are running the world now, those without which people would never get to know what can be the level of convenience for a human being. I’m shaping countries, giving power to people and creating a future,” said Science.

“Yes, you truly brought in more comforts into my people’s lives and I thank you for that, but in return to those comforts you took away the limits that human beings hold on to at their desires. You made my people greedy for material things. You made them do insensate deeds towards other people, all for wars, all for power, all for gaining physical material possessions and become rich. You lost me my true singular principle that I created the world with, the affectionate human connection between one another. Wars were being fought in search of one person. Nations play tactics over each other to move forward economically, forgetting the brotherly human ethics, all just to become rich. You created chaos more than comfort,” said Nature.

“You’re not blameless either. You play with people’s lives. You destroy them with your calamities. People build a proper livelihood over years and you shatter it all in just a matter of minutes with the Earth quakes. People make a living around the coasts and you wash away their dreams of future with just a heavy tide in the mask of tsunamis. People work in agriculture day in and day out putting into it their entire strength of both physical and mental lives for months and you turn it all shapeless and destroy everything in a one night cyclone. Volcanic eruptions, Floods, Cyclones, Earth quakes, Limnic eruptions, Meteorological disasters, Blizzards, Droughts, Tornadoes all summed up results in the loss of hundreds of millions of most valuable human lives, let alone the infrastructure loss they create,” said Science. “What did you do to the Earth’s biggest scientific invention, the Nuclear power, in the Fukushima mishap in Japan and in many other such outbursts? I wished to take the whole world to new heights by blending the nuclear power into people’s lives and make them powerful forever in possible aspects. I wanted to give them nuclear electricity, pollution free technology, security and a lot more. But you demolished that precious path in just a matter of days and made the world fear my nuclear technology.”

“Dear Science, before you talk about Fukushima nuclear disaster, let’s talk about Chernobyl nuclear power plant explosion. It was the biggest scientific disaster ever to happen in the history of mankind, causing  more than 985,000 premature cancer deaths world wide which were a result of the nuclear radiation conflated into the atmosphere that day. It was a man made disaster. It was a signboard cautioning the human beings how adverse and fatal the decisions of Man can be towards the well-being of its species. And, what about Bhopal gas cataclysm that killed many people just at a breath of the poised air? Should a development be that disastrous? And about your nuclear power rise, what arose the need for the development of such dangerous nuclear technologies which if gone wrong would stand as a threat to the entire life on earth? Yes, you needed nuclear electricity because you made the water in the world deplete to lowest heights, thus resulting in low water production that can't provide enough electricity to satisfy the human needs for future. You needed less pollution now, because you now realized the peril you’ve brought upon yourself in the form of Global Warming. If you would’ve maintained everything in the proper proportions from the very beginning, you would not have tried for the invention of such terror-stricken technologies like nuclear power and atomic bombs. With the encounter of all the above events it ought to be clear to you by now that be it development or destruction, you’re making it for yourself, dear Science. But, it is my responsibility to count for the well-being of my home in the long run, so when something catastrophic is in the queue, I involve to clean up and be an eye opener. Cyclone and tsunami that occurred in Fukushima was one such result. Because of that, people all around the world have to a great extent realized the disorder that is resulting in the name of development, and started to take required measures to put a check on such nuclear catastrophes in the future. I have to teach lessons to my kids sometimes, even if it might cost me something, because that is what will stay in the times yet to come,” said Nature.

And the discussion goes on, but for how long!

Nature and Science are not two different things, they are something that live within one another. A balance is to be maintained between Science and Nature without craving for naïve explorations that jeopardize the sustenance that flows between every Human being to walk on the Earth. Let us not cripple the bridge in between, and thus fall into the abyss at the cost of self. Overwhelmed with comforts let us not ignore the basic environmental responsibility we all carry in our lives today. With the unending thirst for power, arrogant upper hand over the other nations and in search  for personal comforts even at the cost of planet’s long life, we’re actually bluffing ourselves in front of a bonfire that is gradually burning up the home we live in. 

 

So, by using the great repository of knowledge that is gifted to mankind in the form of Science let us all be good Human beings towards Nature and make this haven a human Heaven.

Written by:

Krishna Kanth

(an N.I.Tian)