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| Sunday, April 11, 2004 |
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| Sunday, April 11, 2004 |
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Green Consciousness Rising
Alvin Toffler theorised that the reason behind conflicts was the clash between any two of the three waves of agriculture, industrialisation and electronic culture. Samuel Huntington’s theory of ‘Clash of Civilisations’ envisions conflict in the times to come. When the Cold War between capitalism and communism ended, it was thought that the most significant ideological war had come to an end. Francis Fukuyama proclaimed that it was the end of history. However, yet another conflict is surfacing on the world horizon. It is the conflict between economy and ecology, between the exploitation of natural resources to achieve materialistic ends and the struggle to conserve and preserve. Enviromanticism is the name James P. Pinkerton gives to the anti-industrial sentiment of the masses. This rising eco-consciousness in snowballing into a formidable force and has the potential to become a strong political pole. Environmental consciousness is spreading rapidly among the people and has taken the form of a complete ideology. It is the newest religion of the 21st century and seeks to study nature in all its incarnations. No wonder the famous Gaia Hypothesis of James Lovelock considers the earth to be a self-regulatory entity and not a dead planet. The writer, a defence expert, sees in these theses a continuity of thought. He has compiled all such theories and woven them together to forecast the trends and shifts leading to ecology wars. The book is divided into two parts. The first part is a critique of academic theses, books and papers published on the theme of conflict. The second part deliberates on the emerging trends relating to ecology and gives suggestions to ‘re-green’ the earth. Thus, we find author’s comments on and his interpretation of works of thinkers such as Alvin Toffler, Huntington, Francis Fukuyama, James P. Pinkerton, and James Locklock and also papers by Fritzof Capra, Don Headly and Hideaki Okino. One chapter deals with the references to environment and earth in Indian mythology and sacred books. Another chapter delineates suggestions to build a sustainable society in India. The book is a little on the wordier side, and makes for tedious reading. One has to cut through many superfluous layers to get to what the author actually wants to say. Complex sentences, sometimes running into more than hundred words, impede the thought process of the reader. A simple and lucid style could have made it a sleeker but equally valuable volume. Another inconvenience to the serious reader is the amateurish compilation of the bibliography which is neither alphabetically nor chronologically arranged. The list of references is incomplete and several works mentioned in the text find no mention in the bibliography. One or two facts are wrongly mentioned, such as, Buddhism is the religion with the largest number of adherents (p. 16. It is the Islam) and Gandhiji was assassinated on the eve of Independence (p.209. It was on Jan 30, 1948). A standard format of the chapters could have helped the reader. Summary of the contents has been given at the end of the chapter in only three cases while it is missing in the rest of the chapters. The book does not contain any index. The book on the whole does fulfil its objective of sensitising the reader to the soon-to-arrive scenario where environmental concerns will become major political issues may even be catalysts for future wars. |
CONFLICT and war is the most dominant feature of
world history. The world as it exists today is a reflection of past
conflicts and today’s conflicts will shape the future. This thought
and its various interpretations appear time and again in the writings of
contemporary thinkers.