Bhutan must live as an example, as we have the moral responsibility for GNH, to bring world order for a happy universal society.
We are now facing a time when the earth is giving in slowly but surely to the madness of humanity. There are many signs of earth's distress through flash floods, droughts, earthquakes, reducing water levels, drying lakes and rivers - science proves that it is due to too much of human interference on to our planet earth. What can we do things differently to support our mother earth? – nothing is alive without her. What we would leave behind for our grandchildren would be a distorted reality of our earth if we do not bring individual transformation for a societal change.
Bhutan's about 80% land is covered with forest – and we are carbon negative, which will be for many years to come. However, the global warming is not sparing us, despite our pristine environment. Our glaciers are melting, snow leopards are adopting below the snowline because if they follow the snow they will miss the food chain down, our ecology patterns are slowly changing – and we see changes in our environment, water is reducing in our country and everywhere in the world, sea level is rising, spirituality and social divides are getting broader and broader bringing a lot of distress that is expressed through horrendous crimes such as rape, murder, suicides, fraud, divorce, robbery, shooting, etc.
All the above things are happening due to the human greed for more and more propelled by not only advertisement but parents, community and society at large. Let’s look below at the problems one by one.
1. Causes of global warming Greenhouse Gases (GHGs) that is changing the face of earth:
a. Fossil fuels use in vehicles, factories, industries, cooling systems, etc., contribute to 76% of Green House Gas emission. It is directly related to temperature rise in the global. About 12,000 Metric Tons carbon is emitted to the air every year for our greed.
b. Animals raring for meat and dairy products using almost 80% of the global arable land– there are over a trillion cattle, pigs and chicken reared for human consumption. For this greed about 700 billion (not including fish), almost 100 animal per person on earth, are killed each year for human beings. We do not need meat to survive in good health – ask horses, elephants, rhinos, bison, Methuen, and so on if you have any doubts…they all depend on greens. These contribute 16% Methane to the Green House Gases (contributing to global warming).
c. Using unnatural chemicals to bring nitrogen in our dead soil because of the use of chemicals worth of USD 32 trillion in the soil to grow monoculture of genetically modified food crops – 6% Nitrous Oxide is emitted as a contribution to GHGs, and
d. Factory emissions, cooling and consumer goods contributes 2% of F-gases contributes to GHGs that adds to triggering of global warming.
2. Effects of Global warming:
a. Sea level rise and inundation of coastal cities and islands rendering close to 200 million people homeless: Glaciers are melting at a speed that was never recorded in earth’s history of 4.2 billion years. The arctic ice is broken and it is melting at a faster rate than it had. In 2012, I met a few Pacific Islander in Melbourne who were planning to shift out of their islands in 30 years because they realised the sea level rise, which they have been measuring for about three decades. Bhutanese will not have to go far to swim in the sea, because Kolkata, Bangladesh will be under water according to ongoing measures in sea level rise. Likewise, not naming any cities, but look for yourself, most of the coastal cities of the world will be inundated with water. Europe and the world is already suffering with two million refugees from middle east and north Africa…think what is going to happen with 200 million being rendered homeless due to sea level rise….where are we going to house them? We cannot even imagine…Will our boarders hold good then…in a human crises.
b. Change in season: The warmer the globe, insects and animals living in a lower land will begin to migrate to higher altitude land because of increased warmth lower down, and diseases will migrate with them. There will be clashes of human beings diseases and animals. See the next point making this point even worst. The change of season will change the pattern and time of agriculture food products, and distribution and challenge the very existence. We still have the chance to revert the whole and let the mother earth rejuvenate.
c. Oxygen from the sea: Today, every square kilometers of sea has over 2000 plastic and non-degradable materials. It is envisaged that with business as usual, we will have more plastic in the sea than fish. By the way, the Great Corral Reef is almost gone, many of our coral reefs are being destroyed, which is another example of ocean life in danger. All living being on earth will need oxygen and 80% of it is given by Ocean. Imagine when the amount of oxygen will be less and animal and human living on the higher land will migrate to lower land and those living much lower land such as insects and diseases will migrate to higher altitude – and then a new Anthropocene Age will begin with people, disease, insects and animal crises.
3. Ecological divide:
Because of our greed, the waste in the world in a year is enough to feed the entire population for four years. The Indian IIT Kanpur Prof. Ganesh Bagaria and Dr. Vandanya Shiva are proving that the 20% arable land in the world today is enough to produce food for 30 billion people if we go organic in our soil and seeds. The amount of feed that is gown for animals in 80% of the arable land is enough to feed the present population for almost 16 years, if we go organic. So it is not the population growth that we need to worry for but it is our greed for living. We need to separate need from greed and the world will calm down.
Today because of our greed we are making mother earth produce 50% more than her own capacity. It is like asking a woman to give one and half births in a year. With business as usual, it is said that we will need three earths to fulfill our greed in less than 50 years. How do we get or make them? If we look into the world that we live in, it is less than ten people that rule us under their radar of material things we wear, consume, use and apply. It is just 8% of population that takes away and consumes more than 50 % global income and production.
4. Social and Spiritual sufferance:
Education in the world is making every child and youth a shrewd individualistic filled with ego to do better than another human being, and to believe that nature is out there to serve us and we are not a part of it. This makes us inhuman towards ourselves because we stop to live like human beings. It makes us chase for more and more and we have no time to live at the present moment, but either yesterday or tomorrow. In the process we stop to look at our wellbeing. Our minds are in material things and not in spiritual things or connected with ourselves or bodies…this makes us fall apart and we seem to be depressed, anxious, and sick. If we divide our life span, 28 years we sleep, 10 years we are chasing for more and bigger things (earning), 9 years behind TV/ social media, another 9 years for home chorus and arguing, fighting in family. , 4 years eating and drinking, 6 years busy for education and grooming, 1.5 years raising children, and 1.5 years commuting and being stuck in traffic jams. In a life span of 70-76, we have anything between 5 to 9 years left. I wondered what we do with this years of our lives, and I realized we are old by then and now we run behind doctors to repair ourselves with a hope of another lease of life and suddenly it is time to die. On our death bed we become reflective and wonder if we lived our lives. Why wait until the end of our days for this realisations. Could we not remind ourselves every morning that I may not be there tomorrow so how can I live today with innate human values and wisdom? If we did this, we will not regret at the end of our lives.
All the crimes that happens are from the above sufferance especially suicide and depression are based on the pressure of society to be someone who we are not to be or are made for. Parents must understand this point and mothers must play a bigger role to save the future generations on this planet. It is the mothers who give us lives after germinating the seed in their wombs for nine months, raising us and preparing us to step out to the world. If we can get the right values from our mothers, we would be able to see tomorrow a better world than ever. Mothers are actually our GODS.
5. Leadership divide:
The world needs to see leaders who take the human values as their guiding principles to bring wellbeing and happiness in their countries. They must be compassionate, kind, equitable and human. Today, many countries suffer because of the wrong leaders in place. They are busy building wealth at the cost of their nation and people.
The philosophy of GNH can guide leaders willing to change and bring happiness to their people. They all need to follow is “Development with ‘Values’” and bridging ‘Values’ with kindness, equality and humanity as our King His Majesty Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck signified GNH with.
Sending you all love, energy, light filled with wellbeing and happiness - may you always be inspired by our Kings.
Saamdu Chetri
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