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Keeping Hope Alive—Efforts for Declaring Save the Earth Decade
A mid-decade review reveals an all-round worsening of global survival conditions, making the demand for a Save the Earth Decade more urgent than ever.
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Increasingly eminent scientists and others have been warning that the earth’s basic life-nurturing conditions are very seriously threatened. In 2019, I humbly but very sincerely initiated a Save the Earth Now CampaignAuthor’s InitiativeA campaign initiated by the author in 2019, advocating for global action to protect life-nurturing conditions on Earth., accompanied by writing five books on this subject in English and Hindi. The campaign statement emphasized that the task of protecting life-nurturing conditions must be carried forward within a framework of justice, peace, and democracy. The immediate demand was specified as the declaration of the decade 2020-30 as the ‘Save and Protect Earth Decade’ (SED) and its life.
If this specific demand were to be presented today, of course, the demand would be for declaring the decade of 2027-37 as the ‘Save and Protect Earth Decade’. It is hoped today, just as it was expected earlier in 2019, that such a declaration can lead to the continuous initiation of a wide range of new social activities related to protecting life-nurturing conditions. This would emphasize the urgency of survival tasks and particularly involve youth, whose entire lives are ahead of them and must be protected from the biggest threats.
However, a mid-decade review of the issues central to this campaign is likely to lead to widespread consensus that instead of highly committed work and cooperation at a global level leading to improvements, there is an almost all-round worsening of the situation. Of course, several countries can individually point to their climate response reports and similar documents to claim, to varying degrees, that they have done well. However, a more comprehensive review of the nearly a dozen serious environmental problems—led by climate change—that constitute one aspect of the survival crisis would reveal that the situation at the global level is worsening. In some respects, the world is getting nearer to the much-feared tipping points beyond which certain environmental crisis situations, including climate change, can spiral out of control. beyond which some of the environmental crisis situations including climate change can spiral out of control.
As for the second aspect of the existential crisis relating to weapons of mass destructionWMDNuclear, radiological, chemical, biological, or any other weapon that can kill and bring significant harm to a large number of humans or cause great damage to human-made structures, natural structures, or the biosphere., there is even greater escalation of the problem. Several experts have been stating that the risk of nuclear war may be at an all-time high on more than one front. The risks of proliferation have also increased. There are also increasing moves towards space warfare, and despite the ban on biological warfare, some experts mention increasing risks relating to this too.
At the third level of the survival crisis, again we see a worsening situation in the context of disruptive technologies (one much-discussed aspect being certain forms of AI) and harmful research (one neglected example being gain-of-function research).
While these three aspects are at least discussed in the context of the survival crisis, there are also other aspects, such as imperialism and the pursuit of hegemony, becoming more arrogant, arbitrary, and ruthless, with increasingly less concern for international law and ethical norms. and pursuit of hegemony getting more arrogant, arbitrary and ruthless, with increasingly less concern for international law as well as ethical norms. This is a very high risk situation in itself but in addition questions should be asked regarding how the high risks of weapons of mass destruction increase the most in such conditions. The neglect of these aspects is part of a wider problem: these most important survival and existential issues, when discussed seriously at all, are often discussed with a Western bias. Consequently, organizations most identified with the serious study of these issues could not give timely warnings on very important disruptive issues, such as the eastward expansion of NATO, which substantially increased the risks of nuclear war. which substantially increased the risks of nuclear war. As an unbiased examination of the most dangerous developments involves criticism of the interests of imperialism, timely warnings cannot be given by those organizations—otherwise well-intentioned and well-informed—who are restricted by their funding and other limitations from telling the entire truth. Instead their bias leads them towards the kind of analysis from which the most justice-based solutions fail to emerge.
Thus, on the most important issues of protecting the life-nurturing conditions of Earth, while there are several well-informed and timely warnings, there is still a glaring shortage of the kind of solutions that are likely to be the most effective. In addition, there is an absence of comprehensive understanding of various serious problems together with their interrelationships, particularly the inability to link socio-economic and political issues with scientific and technological ones.
In this situation, clearly, there is a need at this mid-decade point to re-assert the demand for giving the highest priority to saving the basic life-nurturing conditions of Earth within a framework of justice, peace, and democracy, as well as for declaring the next decade as the ‘Save and Protect Earth Decade’ and its life. This hope of saving life-nurturing conditions and thereby ensuring a safer future for children and youth can still be kept alive by working with very high commitment and cooperation for justice, peace, and environmental protection.
Disclaimer:The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of The Rift.
*Environmental CrisisClimate ChangeDisruptive TechnologiesGlobal GovernanceNuclear WarSave the Earth Decade
