Few months ago, I posted in my Tamil blog about how human beings have been indiscriminately exploiting and misusing the natural resources in the past fifty years or so, how such indiscriminate activities have contributed to things like global warming, climate change, environmental pollution, etc., how it is affecting us today and how, if we as individuals can make small changes to our lifestyle and outlook, can significantly contribute towards improving the situation.
One person who commented on the post couldn’t accept the fact that global warming is caused by human activities. He said,
What about the other side of the coin? Earth is about 3 billion years old and just 50 years of human action could change the world climate - total farce. Don’t get me wrong, if this the only way we reduce carbon emissions, the change is more than welcome but the premise is still debatable.
Here is my reply to the comment:
Let’s be clear about one thing here. It’s not that just 50 years of human action is affecting 3 billion year old Earth. All the climate change caused by human action doesn’t affect in a significant way the Earth operates. But this climate change caused by our activities does affect in a significant way our life on Earth. Am I making myself clear? It’s like a mosquito sitting on your hand and sucking your blood. It’s not of much significance to you. It takes less than a second for you strike a blow, finish the life of the mosquito and carry on with your work. But you getting rid of the mosquito is very significant from the mosquito’s point of view. It’s a question of life and death for the mosquito. In much the same way, we are sucking away earth’s resources resources in an indiscriminate manner and polluting the environment, the result of which is climate change and this climate change has become a life and death issue for us human beings, but it doesn’t mean a thing to Earth.
Debates have happened over this issue in the past, but now it’s been proved and widely accepted that climate change is caused very much by human activities. So, there is no point in further specluation. It’s time for action. And it’s utter foolishness to say that we have to ’save the Earth’. But we definitely have to take action and save our own lives on this planet.
