Pen Drive
Joshimath’s alert on what posterity might think of us
The Joshimath tragedy is merely a ‘tip of the iceberg’ of an unprecedented challenge
The Joshimath tragedy is merely a ‘tip of the iceberg’ of an unprecedented challenge. This is not just about what’s happening to one Indian hill-town that finds itself sinking. It reflects the dire consequences of human encroachment and destruction of natural habitats and the environment. It is an outcome of humans messing with forests, animals, land and entire ecosystems of nature. It’s not something that has happened overnight. We were forewarned. The risk of Joshimath’s destabilization was first flagged in 1976 (i.e., 47 years ago). More recently, in May 2010, environmentalists and academic researchers had warned of an impending disaster in the hill-town through an article in the Indian scientific journal Current Science.
Human mistreatment of the environment has different forms. About a decade ago, the Indian subcontinent’s population of vultures witnessed a steep decline. It was traced to the use of indiscriminate and high doses of a painkiller diclofenac sodium for pets and domestic animals, such as cows, starting in the 1990s. Vultures that fed on the remains of dead animals that were given this medicine died of chemical poisoning. These birds have long been part of the food chain. Though people in some parts of India consider vultures in the sky an inauspicious sign, it was only when their numbers started declining that we realized their value to the ecosystem. We have been left with the skeletal carcasses of dead animals lying around and acting as breeding ground for pathogens, which raises health risks for us and other animals.
In the last eight decades, of nearly 350 new human pathogens and diseases that have emerged, including covid, most pathogens have jumped from plants and animals (in forests) to humans. At the root of these disease outbreaks has been human interference with nature, the very meddling that has resulted in climate change and global warming. Worldwide environmental damage, rising temperatures, large-scale deforestation, unplanned urbanization, the unnecessary use of antibiotics and ‘antimicrobial resistance’ have emerged as significant threats.
In the past decade, inter-relationships between the health of humans, animals and the environment have been studied and given us the concept of ‘one health’, by which we must all come together to save all three: humans, animals and the environment. As part of India’s G20 presidency, India has proposed health emergencies, prevention, preparedness and response as a key focus area, with ‘one health’ and antimicrobial resistance as sub-themes. Yet, activities that harm us on all these fronts continue to expand, on various pretexts, unabated. One reason is that policymakers continue to ignore scientific evidence and rational voices.
In April 2022, a study published in the journal Nature concluded that if the world’s temperature rises by 2° Celsius between 2020 and 2070, around 15,000 new pathogens which are currently in the wild will come into human contact. Even if a small proportion of them cause illness, it would drastically increase the risk of disease outbreaks and epidemics. Most exposed to this peril would be residents of Asia and Africa. We simply cannot afford to ignore such scientific warnings.
As for Joshimath in Uttarakhand, had the aforementioned scientific commentary of May 2010 received top-level attention, we might have been able to avert the tragedy that has been unfolding in recent weeks.
Neanderthals are direct ancestors of modern humans, or Homo sapiens. They walked on earth before humans learnt how to write and we have no documented evidence of their lives and times. Much of our understanding of them is drawn from excavations and other forms of anthropological evidence. Until a few decades ago, based on various bits of archaeological evidence, most anthropologists believed that Neanderthals were not social and did not care for each other. However, around the 1980s, a few remains of Neanderthals were found that revealed proof of reunion of bones after injury, which would not have been possible unless others in their group had taken care of that person. This compelled us to change our view of Neanderthals and their social lives.
There was no written evidence available to guide us on Neanderthals. However, future generation of human beings would have a lot of written and video evidence on the lives and times of our species today. Therefore, should our progeny conclude that Homo sapiens of the 21st century were hypocrites, they might not be far from the truth. After all, we all talk a lot about protecting the environment and public health, but our actions are mostly to the contrary.
We still have an opportunity to correct ourselves. Over the past few decades, in the name of development, very little has been done to address our increasing carbon footprints, destruction of flora and fauna and propulsion of climate change. The tragedy of Joshimath should remind us to always be mindful of development risks. Our policymakers must listen to the sober voices of scientists, researchers and environmentalists, and then act upon scientifically valid advice. It is time governments fulfilled their promises on the environment. If that is not done, we would deserve the negative view that posterity takes of us.
Chandrakant Lahariya is consultant physician and public policy and health systems specialist.
Catch all the Business News, Market News, Breaking News Events and Latest News Updates on Live Mint. Download The Mint News App to get Daily Market Updates.
MoreLess
First Published:9 Feb 2023, 08:29 PM IST
- Top Gainers
- Top Losers
- 52 Week High