Environmental Problems
In 1984, the world saw the worst industrial accident in history when an explosion occurred at the Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, India. The disaster lead to the death of thousands. Thousands more died in the years after and thousands more were left permanently disabled. The area was so contaminated that mothers’ milk still contains toxins.
Two years later in 1986 the world was horrified to hear that a nuclear power station at Chernobyl in the former Soviet Union had failed releasing 50 percent of its radio active core into the atmosphere. The radiation carried by the prevailing winds threatened not only the Ukraine, but Western Europe also. The effects of the accident on the health of those exposed are still not fully known.
Again in 1989 the super tanker, Exxon Valdez ran a ground in Prince William sound in Alaska spilling over ten million gallons of crude oil into one of nature’s most pristine habitats with devastating effects upon the wild life. Fifteen years later, the eco system has still not recovered.
As I write, the world’s rain forests are being destroyed at the rate of 31 million hectares (an area the size of Poland) per year. The oceans are subject to the indiscriminate dumping of hazardous wastes and fish stocks are on the brink of collapse because of over-fishing. We can no longer trust the food we eat, because of the effects of factory farming and the widespread use of chemicals and pesticides. Scientists tell us that much of south and East Asia are permanently covered by a brown cloud while throughout the world air quality is deteriorating as industrial pollution is carried along by high altitude winds. The ozone layer which protects us from the harmful effects of ultraviolet light has been breached, and the hole is getting bigger. Add to this the prospect of global warming attended by rising sea-levels, climate change, drought and violent storms, and it is hardly surprising that even those most hard-headed of business men, the world’s major insurance underwriters, are worried about future profits.
I’m not talking here about the loss of countless species of plants that may hold the secret to curing human diseases and marvellous animals like the orangutan, tiger and elephant, obliterated by the destruction of their natural habitat. I am talking about the potential destruction of another species, the human species! Are we not really like a cancer feeding upon our host, the environment? Are we not like any cancer certain, through our pathological growth, to kill off our host in good time and thereby ensure our own destruction?
We may question whether the human species is worth saving given it’s track record of whole scale environmental depredation and wanton destruction of social cohesion and personal dignity through economic exploitation and political violence. Notwithstanding the catalogue of our crimes, some people are still inclined to save the planet and humanity along with it. Even the teaching of the Buddha tells us that human existence is precious, an opportunity not to be wasted, since human beings have the potential to become enlightened. Pity that so few of us bother to try. We are too busy contributing to the growth of the economy, our bank accounts, the number of things we own, the amount of junk food we consume, the circumference of our own waistlines!
Again the Buddha had the answer. The cause of our desperate plight is none other than greed. We have allowed ourselves to be lead astray by our unbridled greed, greed that is fed day after day by our media through advertising, through the declarations of our economic experts and business consultants and our political leaders. Does nobody ever stop to think where all this economic growth will lead? - to happiness? - not likely. The World Health Organisation has recently called on the newly industrialised countries of Southeast Asia whose economic growth rates are impressive to spend more money on mental health programmes to help their affluent urban populations cope with the problems of stress and depression. It seems, money isn’t the key to happiness after all. The Buddha could have told them. Satisfaction is the greatest wealth. Only a contented person is really happy. Once you get hooked by greed, you can never get enough. The Buddha told the story of a certain King in the far past. The King was the wealthiest man in the world, but that wasn’t enough for him. He wanted to own heaven too. The King of the gods offered to share heaven with him, and for some time that made him happy. But after a while, he had to have all of heaven. He killed the King of the gods which isn’t allowed and consequently fell to earth where he died without anything.