Published: April 17, 2006
Op-Ed Contributor
World Earth's Day-Message For Peace
By Kamala Sarup
Each April 22 we celebrate World's Earth Day. The first "Earth Day" was held in 1970. Two thirds of the Earth's surface is covered with water, and the entire Earth is blanketed by air, a mixture of primarily two gases nitrogen and oxygen.
Earth day helped end the Cold War. Even, every year Earth Day's Peace Bell ceremony at the UN brought together leaders from countries in understanding and choosing the ways of peace.
Earth Day commemorates earth health and promotes making the environment cleaner and safer. Its connection with war is that munitions pollute the environment and mines are safety hazards. Wars also threaten the world's genetic heritage and hence its capacity to feed itself in the future. International Earth Day also seeks to restore balance in the ecological community and within the human community by addressing issues relating to the environmental, global peace and justice. The threat posed by large scale warfare between nations has given way to civil unrest and ethnic or religious turmoil within countries.
Environmental problems, population growth, and growing shortages of vital resources threaten peace in the World community. Often shortages of natural resources like clean water, arable farmland, forests, and fisheries are ongoing problems for societies torn by internal strife.
John McConnell the founder of Earth Day and writer of an Earth Day Proclamation stated "The most powerful nation spends billions for war and pennies for peace. If the money spent for devilish weapons of war to kill people were spent for peacemaking education and actions, we could soon eliminate war as a way to settle differences. We must replace Earth Kill with Earth Care and replace war makers with peace makers.
In the present world crisis and danger of a catastrophe that would end the human adventure, each and every one who prefers peace must now be a peacemaker in thought, word and deed. Its time to end the human family's long history of wars and violence. Together, we can provide a great future for people and planet! All individuals and institutions have a mutual responsibility to act as Trustees of Earth, seeking the choices in ecology, economics and ethics that will eliminate pollution, poverty and violence, foster peaceful progress, awaken the wonder of life, and realize the best potential for the future of the human adventure", he stated.
The costs of war and its perpetual threat are immense, and threaten freedom and civilization itself. It is impossible to promote economical and social development and social justice if we can continue to prioritize weapons of war and death over poverty eradication, global health needs, education and economic growth. Over a billion people continue to live in abject poverty in war. Rich countries must look for ways to help instead of spending billions of dollars on tools that kill and cause tremendous suffering. The weapons industry's development and testing of weaponry produces an endless stream of hazardous waste.
"There have always been wars because people are aggressive, acquisitive for power, and ignorant of the consequences of aggression. Making a world community under universal laws is highly unlikely. But we all altruistic people can do is protect ourselves from warlike people, or set up controls to reduce the number and magniturde of wars among nations", Peacejournalism.com's adviser and missiles engineer of U.S. Department of Defense Mr. Stanly stated.
People have limited knowledge of the consequences of war; otherwise, they might not wage it. If Germany, Japan and Italy had foreseen that the allies were capable of defeating them, then they surely would not have tried to conquer the world during WW II. If the U.S. leaders had realized their impotence of war against communist governments in Indo-china, they would not have wasted blood and treasure being defeated. Because of the aggressiveness, acquisitiveness, and ignorance of people and their leaders, wars are continuing in the world.
Because of war, poverty and hunger in the world today is increasing. Unfortunately, under capitalism, "the consumer is king", and under communist governments the hierarchy takes care of itself first, so people born in more favorable environments with ability and motivation will get a big share of the food while those in less favored environments will go hungry and poor. Worldwide the growth of grain production has slowed dramatically, and the amount of food available per person has declined.
Governments temper the inequalities somewhat by redistributing income from the rich to the poor, but these efforts do not close the inequality gap sufficiently to prevent poverty and hunger. Therefore, there is always famines, and war in the world.
Also, because of war the basic needs of 5.5 Billion human beings seriously threaten the earth's life-supporting environmental resources. By the year 2050, water is projected to be in short supply for 4.4 Billion people. 70% of the world's fish stocks are in decline. The nature of these global threats calls into question the value of increased investment in aircraft carriers, high tech fighter jets, and submarines, weapons. Each year, about 25 billion metric tons of nutrient-rich topsoil is dislodged by wind and rain, leaving the land barren, and disorder in already weak nations. A 1993 State Department report identifies land mines and other unexploded ordnance as the most toxic and widespread pollution facing mankind.
In 1971, Greenpeace, formed in Canada, adopted principles of non-violent civil disobedience to raise public consciousness about the risks of nuclear power. As a result of the testing of nuclear weapons, the Western Shoshone Nation in Nevada qualifies as the most bombed nation on earth.
Even the connection between Earth Day and industries is that they use the earth's resources, many of which are nonrenewable. They also pollute the land, sea and air. Therefore, there is an inconsistency between the accumulation of material wealth through the expansion of industries and the maintenance of an attractive and healthy environment. Population growth also harms the environment because more people require more land, water and air and the resources in them. Unfortunately, continued population growth will deteriorate the environment in spite of the best efforts of people to make the earth cleaner and safer.
U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson, was inspired by anti-war teach-ins across the US during the Vietnam War asserted that the goal of Earth Day should be to create "an environment of decency, quality and mutual respect for all other human creatures and for all living creatures."
Nepal's Earth day
Environmental stability, decline in poverty and peace is a sign of a nation's stability as a whole. If we don't value these things then Nepal isn't going to be a stable country. More and more, it is war, poverty and environmental problems that threaten the stability of Nepal.
We Nepali people now have to think and act as a Trustee of Earth, seeking choices in ecology, economics and ethics that will provide a sustainable future for our children.
Earth Day provides an opportunity for reflection about our Nepal. We are facing the challenges of safeguarding the beauty of our natural Nepal for our present generation as well as for the future. We Nepalis can conduct educational programs and seminars and promote research and investigation throughout the country. We can also assist the work with organizations for the purposes of minimizing unnecessary duplication of energies and maximizing the impact and effectiveness of Nepal care movement. The celebration of Earth Day should be on every day in Nepal.
A Research Scholar, Kamala Sarup was born in Dharan.
* The views of Opinion writers do not necessarily reflect the views of NewsBlaze
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