Planet Earth

PLANET EARTH

The Earth is ours to enjoy,
For every little girl and boy,
But we must always be aware,
That all its beauty, We must share,
With all the children yet to come,
who want to laugh and play and run
Around the trees and in the fields
We must never ever abuse
Our Sweet  Earth that is ours to use.
                                                                                         - Earth Lovers

Earth – its uniqueness:-


Our Planet Earth sustains life, making it  unique in the Solar System. What is required for a planet to be able to support life? This is a question that people have been trying to answer for many years.Living organisms need certain things to survive,which are  found on Earth only. Some of these life supporting features are- food, water, atmosphere, temperature, rotation, gravity, surface and a moon.   

                  First, living things need a source of food. Energy is needed for living things to grow.  Main source of energy on Earth is from the sun. Plants use light from Sun, or photosynthesis.    Plant’s source of food comes from photosynthesis. Animals eat plants. Higher order animals eat smaller animals. So, goes on the FOOD CHAIN. Planets that are far from the sun such as Pluto, cannot use the Sun’s light to produce food. Photosynthesis could never happen on Pluto. Therefore, there will never be life on Pluto.

                  Earth is the only planet to have  large amount of liquid water. Mars does have polar ice caps, but no liquid water.

                  Another unique feature of earth is its atmosphere. A planet without any atmosphere, like Mercury, could never have any life. Living things have to breathe.

                  Earths temperature is perfect for supporting life. Earth’s average temperature is 15ºC. Any other planet would either be too hot or too cold for life. Earth’s perfect temperature is due to many things. Our distance from the sun determines how much of the Sun’s heat we get. Our rotation of 24 hours ensures that no one side of Earth faces the sun for too long unlike Venus. The main factor that controls Earth temperature is our atmosphere. Our atmosphere causes us to experience the Green House effect. The atmosphere holds in the heat from the Sun, trapping it so we don’t get too cold.

                    Gravity is also important for life. Earth has a surface to stand on and enough gravity to hold things on the  surface.

                  For the reasons above, earth is perfect place to live. If any of these factors are eliminated, there would be no life on earth. Life could not survive on any other planet, because while there are planets with some of these features, there is no planet except earth with all of them.
         
                        Man, in the name of progress and development, disturbs delicate balance created by nature. It is greed rather than need which becomes evident from the  acts    of        men in the  19th and  20th century.    Forests have been cut indiscriminately for various projects viz Dams, Roads, Townships, Industries, Power Projects, Airports and the like. Plant life and animal life has been facing threat of extinction due to rampant deforestation.

                  Floods, lowering of Ground water table, contamination of the water of rivers, lakes etc, is the outcome of the destruction of fragile environment.

                    We need  to change  our attitude towards the Planet. We must ponder what we are doing with our precious resources.Loading the Planet with lifeless and apathetic world of machines ; polluting our rivers, streams, lakes, Sea and Ocean with tonnes of industrial, chemical and even nuclear waste. Ruthless Degrading of the atmosphere with smoke, sulphur-dioxide, carbon monoxide, resulting in OZONE HOLE and Global Warming. Contamination of Ground Water with poisonous substances like lead, arsenic ,fluorides- making it unfit even for animals. Melting of polar Ice caps and rising sea levels, shall submerge many coastal cities in years to come .
                    What is to be done?  There is will- there is way, is an old proverb.    We will be able to create a better future, if mankind works together and reaches a common understanding. We must accept the fact that industrial Civilization  of 19th and 20th century, has estranged us from nature, from other people and from ourselves.    We have even  forgotten our  responsibility  towards  our  coming
generation.

                  Now we must change . Visualize a new civilization - “Green Civilization” , “Eco-civilization” or Some thing else. Its focus should be on need, alliance between man and nature and between men themselves, and man’s recovery of his lost self. Civilization would be a perfect integration of the ancient and modern; of the Eastern and Western civilizations. This would be a brand new and alterative form of world. The new civilization would re-adjust three relation-ships:-

            The relationship between man and nature, between men, and that of man to himself. It is precisely on this point that the new civilization would bring to us, an entirely new concept of value of sharing and togetherness, distinguishable form the present culture, based on greed, consumption, exploitation and waste.

                “Let nature guide man (Shi Fa Ziran)” as LaO-Tzu, an ancient Chinese philosopher, taught in his Tao Te Ching. To follow the nature means to acquire the wisdom of living harmoniously with nature- The most important wisdom of all mankind.

              The second relationship that the new civilization should re-adjust is the relationship between men. The attitude of men towards each other should be to befriend others. We should not shift our own troubles onto others, nor seclude ourselves from other and refuse to communicate. Instead we should respect, try to understand , learn from and help each other. Since ancient times, our planet has witnessed countless  wars. Whatever the cause, their results have been the same: devastating disaster to both mankind and the environment. Many civilizations even declined as a result of eco system collapse caused by wars. The Mayan civilization is a typical case in point. In this century, should another war break out, there would be no winners but loser only. Man has to learn to handle differences and conflicts between peoples and between states in a rational way.

                The third relationship that the new civilization must re-adjust is man’s attitude toward himself. The attitude should be “to restrain desires and demands”. The ancient Greek Philosopher Scorates’s admonition “to understand yourself "is still applicable to-day.

                  A Russian fable goes like this. One day a land lord said to his farm hands-" Is it true that you all want land ? All right, you start to run from the east to the west, when the Sun rises tomorrow morning, and return to where you stand by sunset. All, the land you  cover by then will be yours”.

                The next morning, the farmers started running at sunrise. The fastest runner returned to the original place at sunset .  He would have got  the largest piece of land. But he died of exhaustion. The land lord, after burying him in a hole, asked the remaining men, “How much land do you think a men really needs ? You all have seen what he needs is only a small piece of not more than two meters long and one metre wide.”
              This message need to be internalized by all men, societies and Nations, if this Beautiful planet is to survive for our children and their children for the ages to come.