Ecological backlash: A blow for a blow
The system of Earth values many of us embrace is a rather narrow view of humans in the environment and an even narrower view of the purpose of nature. The main tenets of this view are: (1) The Earth has an unlimited supply of resources and it's all for us; (2) we are apart from nature and immune to natural laws; (3) and our success derives from the control of nature.
Believing in the above tenets and consequently the need to reign supreme, we position ourselves outside the realm of nature. We believe that we can do whatever we please without harming the nature. It is now clear that our acts have been very costly. Most of the environmental problems we face today stem from our “phenomenal” success at dominating nature.
The Earth's refusal to accept our domination without exacting a hefty price is called ecological backlash. It is nature's version of a blow for a blow.
A good example of ecological backlash is the Aswan Dam whose effects extended far beyond the dam site and its lake. The dam was built in the 1960s on the Nile River in Egypt to provide electricity for the rapidly growing city of Cairo and irrigation water for the lower Nile basin.
Traditionally, the Nile, flowing from the headwaters in Ethiopia has flooded its banks every year. The flood replenished the nutrients removed from the farmland by the crops with nutrient-rich silt derived from the basaltic lavas of Ethiopia. As the flood water flowed into the Mediterranean Sea, the silt nourished a variety of phytoplankton, such as algae, which were food for the thriving fish population.
Not long after the dam was completed and the reservoir for the dam, Lake Nasser, was filled up, problems began to appear. First, periodic flooding that fertilized the farmland along the banks of Nile ceased, forcing the farmers to import fertilizer at an exorbitant cost. Next, the sardine fishery in the eastern Mediterranean collapsed due the loss of nutrient-rich silt.
The creation of Lake Nasser has had another far reaching effect. The lake became the breeding site of the snail which carries a parasitic worm that causes schistomiasis, a potentially fatal disease that damages internal organs. Incidences of schistomiasis increased abnormally after the land surrounding the lake was brought under cultivation.
The threat of flood from Lake Nasser forced two priceless archeological sites to be moved to higher grounds. One of them is the Temple of Abu Simbel, built over 3000 years ago by Ramses II. The other one was the temple at Philae, dedicated to the goddess Isis. The relocation cost of both the temples was astronomical.
Aswan Dam should make the energy Czars of Bangladesh cognizant about the ecological backlash that will result once the harebrained coal-fired power plant at Rampal goes into operation. If it doesn't, then they should look at the devastating effects three thermo-electric power plants had on the Yerkesik-Denizova forests in Turkey.
The proponents of the Rampal plant believe that the environment, including the Sunderbans, is capable of absorbing most of the pollutants that will be vented into the surroundings by the combustion of coal. They are, however, turning a blind eye to the fact that nature will eventually hit back because after all there is so much abuse it can take. In the long run, the ecological backlashes due to the ill-conceived power plant will wreak havoc on the Sunderbans, its inhabitants and the local environment.
Thus, by building the power plant in direct contravention of the covenants of the global environmental treaty, The Ramsar Convention, the clarion call by the government “Save the tigers and save the nature” sounds rather hollow.
American naturalist Henry David Thoreau noted that if we want to live in a fine house, we need a habitable planet to build it. Earth is the only planet in the solar system that is habitable. But it's in peril, in dire straits. We are beating it to death. “We are at once the problem and the only possible solution to the problem.” Hence, to keep our planet habitable, we have to come to terms with this ambiguity.
The writer is Professor of Physics at Fordham University, New York.
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