Nurturing nature (3)

More than half a century ago, the biologist/ecologist Barry Commoner made a clarion call about an impending environmental crisis if human beings continue with their rapacious use of nature’s gifts. He made this through his 1971 book that I have already cited in the first two parts of this series (“The Closing Circle: Nature, Man, Technology”).

Commoner’s third law is “Nature knows best.” Left undisturbed, nature will just heal its own “wounds,” to regenerate after a major catastrophe. This has been demonstrated in the earth’s capacity for rebirth after the presumed “big bang” that decimated prehistoric creatures like the dinosaurs and other living organisms. This period of continuous and speedy rebirth of the earth is what environmentalists and ecologists call the Holocene. The Holocene has stabilized the earth for quite a long time, which led to the era of massive regrowth and development, and the rise of human civilization.

Unfortunately, it is this same human arrogance and sense of superiority that erected massive monuments of power (like the Acropolis in Greece and Persepolis in Iran, formerly Persia) that have also made us forget this law. Human beings keep on tinkering with and pushing the limits of what nature can do which has led us to where we are now, on the brink of a major environmental disaster, as we are warned in various media.

The fourth law is “there is no such thing as a free lunch.” Everything we do, or don’t do, will always have a repercussion. We may not see it in an instant, but it will somehow happen. The cost may come at a later time, and it can be at a time when there is no turning back, and when things happen in confluence with each other to cause major devastation. This law sums up all the three other laws, as Commoner argues in “The Closing Circle.” Since everything in nature is interconnected (first law) when something is done in one part of it, it will always go somewhere—it does not disappear (second law). When nature is left on its own, it can always heal itself after some natural mishaps or accidents happen (third law). The Chernobyl nuclear explosion in 1986 turned one erstwhile progressive city in Ukraine into a ghost city. But currently, the place is showing signs of vegetative and animal life. After a devastating accident caused by faulty human planning and decision-making, nature can still recover, over time.

In other parts of the world, we see how nature has already been exploited to the point that it will take a long time for it to recover and bring back the natural environment that has nurtured us all these years. In Somalia, for example, more than 40,000 people have died as a result of extreme weather events, flooding in one area, and drought in another. Drought is the consequence of rapid desertification, turning erstwhile lush forests into savannahs, then ultimately into deserts.

Several local incidents demonstrated the devastating consequences of Commoner’s fourth law. Government inaction, slow action, or an anomalous action or decision on an urgent climate-related impending crisis can lead to devastating results. Many tragic incidents happened largely because of government neglect (inaction), and acts of corruption (circumventing laws or policies like the environmental compliance certificates or building standards requirements, among others). The Lake Maughan-Mount Parker is one such tragedy.

In October 2019, an earthquake (intensity 6 to 7) struck many provinces in Central Mindanao, including Davao City. Several buildings collapsed, like a public elementary school building in North Cotabato. The building’s collapse exposed the consequences of corruption. A report from Phivolcs after the 2019 earthquake concluded that many buildings, especially government ones, were built with “poor engineering,” using “substandard construction materials … the major contributing factors to the damages.”

We can’t bring back nature to its pristine form at this stage. But if we act collectively to nurture it to what ecologists call its homeostatic (balanced) state, we might be able to delay or even hopefully prevent a massive global environmental crisis in the future. It is time we nurture nature back to its stabilized state, so we are able to fully benefit from its gifts.

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