8/10/2010

The endangered me!

Statements by two people about the possible extinction of human race from earth in a couple of hundred years has worried me. The statements carry some weight because they have come from the people whom we know for their knowledge and research. First one came from the Australian scientist of extinct species, 95 years old FRANK Fenner. The detail of his preidction can be seen here. The gist of what he said is that human race is going to be extinct in a 100 years and there is no hope of the dangerous game being reversed by whatsoever be done. Trennnnnnnn!!!! Danger bell............

I read this story a few weeks back and shared the link on facebook for my friends to have a look, on June 22 to be exact. A forum where a joke about Zardari or a controversial political statement would readily convert into a prolonged discussion, especially if participated by someone from the fair sex initially, this particular post didn't make anyone follow the story...... Trennnnnnnnn again... We are unaware of the danger, and we don't want to be aware of such bad news......... A bigger danger......

Today I came across a statement by Stephan Hawking, the legendary astrophysician, in which he has advised humans to prepare to colonize the space in order to survive as the only option left. Had he been left with any hope of survival on this planet, his words would have been softer. The news can be followed here. Can you ignore these two scientists' advice? From my side, the answer is no. But the question is, can I do anything in this respect? The answer is again NO. I belong to a nation which has little time to spare for environment. I come from a place where deforestation has brought earth quakes and floods and they are contented to have all this as a will of God. But if I cannot do anything for the protection of human race from threat of extinction, why am I worried? Here starts the problem...........

My physical age is projected between 6 to 7 decades at the best. The possibility is quite rare though as the probability of dying is on the rise due to various factors including increasing traffic and other scientific accidents, natural calamities, pollution, stress, terrorism and from the loads of homegrown and neighbouring weapons of genocide. So I am sure I am going to die before the end, rather the beginning of the end. I have due care for my generation who will see the difficult times in their lives. What is important to me is that if we go extinct, that would mean all that we learned and built to date is of no use, and that we are leaving the planet in such dismal state, loaded with bombs and hate. We certainly didn't prove our worth. Perhaps we have been looking for survival, dvelopment of means to survive longer on this planet, and in the course of such progress, we eventually hastened the processes that predisposed the end. Whatever it is going to be, a nuclear accident, war, dooms day, climate change, catastroph, a planet coming to hit us or sun going to engulf earth, it seems quite near as extrapolated by weather changes ad warming of the globe.

Well.. Everyone has to die. But inside this fact of mortality, there is a struggle for immortality, through our deeds and generations. That is why extinction seems more scary than death. When we die, we know that there are people behind to take care of our belongings and complete our unfinished projects, promises, revenges and stuff like that. But after extinction, like there would be no one to uncover what we couldn't dare to share with the world in life, stuff for controversies, hidden folders of our hard drives and anonymous email addresses. No one will come back to discover trees where we engraved our names, decieving ourselves of a false together-hood. Facebook hasn't come of age as yet and we are near extinction. Is this the climax? No, social networking could have been more real than this without playing havoc with the environment, we could have been able to see the real climax of internet. But as they said in Matrix, fate is not without a sense of irony. Two decades of internet and we literally villegized the globe, yet all is going to be wasted in 100 years. Thats sad, really sad.... Specifically speaking about Pakistan, we will not be able to utilize all the natural resources and wealth given to us or told to be given to us, except what was discovered by our wealthy establishment. Thar coal will go wasted too...... Alas!!!

There is yet another type of sickness associated with it. Human are going to go extinct. But other creatures, or for that matter, some of other creatures will persist... Animals... Like animals will persist and we, the most developped primates will disappear, like dinosaurs. I go mad when I think that animal will roam around in the buildings and homes constructed by us.... And they will wonder how we could climb upto top floor of a multi story building without stairs... I suppose they will not be able to maintain the electricity flowing.... as we think how were the pyramids constructed... All this is sad...

So, let us accept it. We are gona disappear in 100 years. AGREED...May be a mutant species of humans is produced by some experiments which may survive. At least it should be taken into account as a project. Or we should start learning to live here the way we would live in space or another planet. Without the help of science and instruments, let us go back to forests and start a new life. Let us live in harmony with nature this time or lets hope someone will escape to space. They will establish a colony over there, somewhere, and will survive all the ill effects of weather and stuff. Generations after generations in space, may be they return to earth some day, only to find that we existed... But how would they know us. We don't engrave stones anymore. Language will be difficult to understand. So we must leave some sign, something which can withstand the ill effects of centuries, like Gandhara people did for us, although we are yet to decode all of that. But before that, let us suppose we are few people on a boat, in a wide open sea, sure to die in a day or so. Would we be killing some to feed deadly sharks so that others can find a survival or would we prefer to stay together, all equal human beings, all having equal right to live and die, destined to survive together or die together, go extinct? I think the answer is not difficult to find. But the exciting thing for those of us who believe in Day of Judgement, it will be near. I mean for someone who died 10,000 years back, it is still to happen. But for our generation, it will take a mere 100 years. One less thing to worry. But who knows, I mean I don't know whether it will happen after our extiction while the earth still continuing with life or otherwise. All this is so complicated. One last thing, do you think God planned all this? And suppose He didn't, then why would He let it happen?