COP26 , existential threat to humanity of Climate Change, and Homo Belated Sapiens

Climate change is now with us, humans of this earth.  The anthropogenic gases, the relentless burning of fossil fuels, the extractive spoilage of soil and ecosphere for the last 150 years, the loss of biodiversity due to the rampant mon-culture of modern agriculture, the widespread destruction of forest all combined have brought the earth to a tipping point.  This year calamitous fires have raged far and wide in all continents except Antarctica where large glaciers have melted as a prelude to anticipated rise of sea levels.  

It all started back in 1850’s and with the rise of mercantile capitalism and Industrial revolution.  That was also the era of the doctrine of manifest destiny and white man’s burden, the dual doctrine propelling colonial expansion of the earth surface by massive deployment of technology.   These activities led to human triumphalism, colonialism, mindless urbanization through the decades and centuries.   Infinitesimally, incrementally climate was being harmed unknown to humanity.  The ideological competition, arms race, winning at all cost numbed us away from science-driven introspective care of biosphere.  Literally we were trashing our own homes to fulfil our triumphal fantasies.  Now the die is cast.  There may not be any more a pathway of return.  It may very well be that we are irreversibly close to the final day of reckoning.

As you sow, so you will reap.  We have known this as part of our heritage-centred education; although we did not learn it in our formal education.  In the wise tales of our sages from both the west and the east we were warned.  In 1950’s Rachel Carson reminded us in her epic book on environment “The silent Spring”.  James lovelock reminded us in his ‘Gaia Hypothesis”.  In our ancient eastern lore we knew that earth is a revered mother Dharitri, one that hold us and nurtures us.  Our ancient sages and our religions told us not to walk wantonly and haughtily on the surface of the earth.  It is not as though we did not know or that we were not fore-warned.

However hubris is a more potent allure than modesty.  Delusional fantasy of human invincibility is like a seductive drug.  Economics rather than ecology has been our Mantra.  We have trained ourselves to think of a tree as a piece of unmade furniture,  only to be chopped down and used; vistas of natural land to us have been only spaces  waiting for our environment damaging cemented cities and  buildings, our rivers as dumping grounds of our trash.  We forgot to subtract such insult and injuries to nature from our calculutions of development and from the analytics of our GDP.  When counting and reporting our achievements we kept our one eye shut.  Shunning wisdom and spirituality we have chosen material development as only pathway to future.

And unknown to our perceptions and our consciousness three climate-changing gases have accumulated in the upper atmosphere in a chemistry that has been largely unknown to us during our trajectory of progress.  Like the toxic breath of a proverbial viper (Naginee) these gases have slowly conspired with sunlight warming our atmosphere as we escalated our journey of material development by burning fossil fuels that nature gave us in bounty.  Craving of cheap Oil nucleating  endless wars and turmoil.  Causing genocidal destruction of human society as one nation gloated at her triumph over another and not even noticing the destruction being meted out to the atmosphere common to both the victors and the vanquished.  Self aggrandizing exceptionalisms proclaiming the superiority of one narrative  over another; but all competing being ultimately doomed because of being ignorant of the most elementary geochemistry of our abode, the Mother Earth.

Even today as a zoonotically triggered pandemic devours us and the atmospheric dooms-day engulfs us in wide-spread global fire we still cannot take a collective stand as humanity.  We are still more interested in confrontation than in finding a common ground.  The genetic program that defines our collective brain is dysfunctional and corrupted by greed and fantasies of triumphal victory.

In this background COP26 might be just a talk-fest like many human discourses are these days.  As a vulnerable nation Bangladesh will feel the climate peril more than others.  But the demise of terrestrial and other natural order have been more catastrophic than previously anticipated and the whole earth is caught up in the ravaging onslaught of climate.  In the latest incarnation of the tipping point not a specific place but the whole earth appears equally vulnerable.  

But the human mind always like to hope.  Our young ones led by Greta Thunberg like to dream of a different future world.  For the sake of the younger ones; For my son Sami I would like to dream.  Maybe in a shining miracle a certain wisdom will befall on human psyche bringing us closer than ever before.  For years we have denied climate oting for delay.  Maybe we will take into heart the views of our young ones and craft a united charter rather than the current acts of half-hearted support overshadowed with super power rivalries.  Let us hope that COP26 brings in a change of heart so much so that we surprise ourselves and act finally in a greater common cause that has so far eluded us.   Against all odds and against conventional wisdom may we become together true children of the mother earth, Homo belated Sapens.

Writer: Geneticist and Climate Scientist.