Rwanda: Mess With Nature And Soon Enough It Will Mess Back

	Email This Page Print This Page Comment on this article

Focus Media (Kigali)

OPINION
29 July 2008
Posted to the web 29 July 2008

Rugumire Makuza

Columnist Rugumire Makuza takes a quasi humorist, half angry look at the ravages of humankind on nature and the environment. "Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet, you are a plague ..." says the character Morpheus in the movie The Matrix.

This about sums up man's so called 'development' and the toll it is taking on living... and non-living things. In the 30s some wise Romanian called Georgescu Rogen warned the world on its gluttonous habits. But no one listened. He was echoing the wisdom of a certain Serge Carnot...

In the 60s another visionary Rachel Carsons, wrote one of the most moving books that ushered the era of environmentalism, Silent Spring. Neo-industrialists and economists of produce and profit ad maximus laughed at her and her following calling them tree-huggers.

In the seventies, amid the petrol crisis and the bitter Judeo-Arabian wars, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) was born. Still it was simply an ersatz. Business continued as usual.

The 80s saw the first debt crisis. One bright summer morning the ABC countries i.e. Argentina, Brazil and Chile told the North; "Look guys, we simply can't pay our debts!" (They could have added, "at the usurious interest rates you are charging us" but they did not).

This ushered in the ten years of terrible hardships by the World Bank which introduced programs euphemistically called 'debt restructuring' or rather 'structural adjustment programs'. In other words, "don't live beyond your means."

As these dynamics were unfolding, Africa was majestically marching towards ruin. This was under the 'fatherly leadership'-propped up by their dog handlers USA and Russia-of the Mobutus, Nguemas, Amins, Obote, Moi, (Just look up the presidents of Africa from 1979-1989).

Then came the wars to topple the despots. This was perhaps the most blissful time for Gaia, for man in his infinite shortsightedness was too busy killing one another to trouble Nature. Meanwhile China and India had crept up, unnoticed, in the 'development' race.

Nature started to talk, with a few 'natural disasters' compelling countries to think again. The result was the 1990 Rio Summit, aka Earth Summit, which everyone attended-except Bush Sr. who was busy shocking and awing Sad Saddam, teaching him a lesson for attacking Kuwait.

World Leaders talked but did not commit. Policy makers came up with all those nice catch phrases, 'end hunger by 2015', "every one in school by 2017' etc.

The real players of course laughed at the world. And nature stood by watching...

Only recently, after the Kyoto fiasco on climate change, George Bush Jr. was talking the same language-"we have to protect jobs" ... blah blah. And China and India were saying: "Oh, we are 'developing countries,' therefore we too have to do our bit of messing up nature."

On world Environment Day, June 6, 2008, the US senate vetoed a bill that would have compelled US industries to limit their carbon emissions. And as if right on cue, Sunday June 7, 2008 the US Midwest-a region known for its aridity-experienced rains and floods of almost biblical proportions. It rained for a whole week!

A month later, at the G8 meeting in Japan, Mr. Bush started to change his tune.

Ironically Gordon Brown had been pushing for action on carbon limitations. Perhaps because Britain last year had seen some of the worst in its history?

The dilemma: we are in a Zero sum game, or what is normally called the 'tragedy of the commons'. It does not matter who tips the boat, all of us will drown unless we learn to become responsible.

In a world so decadent, where the trivial, frivolous, flippant takes center stage (David and Victoria Beckham's kids' birthday bash in Los Angeles, for instance), it will take more than a couple of disasters in the US and EU (maybe in China and India) for someone to get the wake up call loud and clear.

A couple of factoids:

The Aral Sea, which was the fourth largest inland lake in 1960, is now 5% of its former size. It also happens to be one of the few ancient lakes (5 million years old).

Lake Chad has shrunk by 95% in the last 30 years. The shrinking is directly linked to human irrigation to grow cotton and foods. Lake Victoria has dropped 1.5 meters in the last 5 years. Lake Tanganyika 1.3 metres in the last 3 years.

Ditto a number of other water bodies. Whither humankind some few dozen years from now?

Read comments. Write your own.

AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.

Share this on: Facebook Digg Del.icio.us StumbleUpon Muti

Copyright © 2008 Focus Media. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections -- or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.

Make allAfrica.com your home page | RSS Feed Sign up for FREE daily 'top headlines' by email >>

Top | Site Guide | Who We Are | Advertising | Search | My Account

Questions or Comments? Contact us. Read our Privacy Statement.