- We know for a fact that human ingenuity always produces surprises from time to time when the majority would have considered a certain aspect unimaginable. While generations have welcomed several atrocious innovations, inventions, initiatives, developments, and growth of diverse nature over the millennia, what must not be forgotten is the fact that Mother Nature has also been kind enough to keep accommodating infinite follies committed by humankind in the name of expansion. Agreed, we must keep moving ahead in commensurate with the increasingly aspirational societies, looking forward to being at par with the most advanced nations. However, not at the cost of incessantly harming harmonious coexistence by compromising at critical junctures.
PC: iStock
- Before environmental degradation became the buzzword across the globe, some of the man-made disasters, like Chernobyl, hit us hard. For the uninitiated, the Chernobyl accident in 1986 was the result of a flawed reactor design that was operated with inadequately trained personnel. The resulting steam explosion and fires released at least 5% of the radioactive reactor core into the environment, with the deposition of radioactive materials in many parts of Europe. The worst nuclear disaster in history emptied entire towns, uprooting 350,000 lives. In an unforeseen twist, it also triggered extraordinary rewilding. As reported recently, in parts of the exclusion zone, the landscape appears to have rolled back centuries. Almost a ‘factory reset’, you see.
PC: Factual America
- Welcomingly, wolves and bears roam free once more. What should have been a place of pure darkness, the most blighted on earth, has instead been reclaimed by cascading ecological forces. Man – pompous, self-appointed custodian of this planet – has made precisely one contribution to all of it: Exit stage left. Like big mammals, birds, trees, and other organisms are also enjoying a joyous rejuvenation. Bacteria are thriving inside the nuclear reactor walls, others immobilisingthe dissolved uranium, and fungi breaking down contaminated materials. They are taking energy from the very things that make the site deadly to us. To be clear, the 1986 nuclear accident inflicted massive mortality and mutation on forests, mammals, invertebrates, and soil microorganisms.
PC: Bloomberg News
- Only with time did the positive, adaptive responses emerge. Russia’s war on Ukraine has shattered this fragile peace. Drones have struck the sarcophagus built to entomb the radioactive debris. Flora and fauna have adapted to chronic radiation phenomenally, but ‘we the problem’ remains. We still cannot leave them alone. Our military blundering threatens fresh devastation. Chornobyl’s true lesson is not that Nature can absorb our worst catastrophes, but that what Nature most needs to heal itself is for us to get out of the way. This is grim comfort, but still a comfort, that when we render the planet uninhabitable for ourselves, which we seem bent on doing, everything else could still thrive. Why can’t we blend harmonious living under the umbrella of Mother Nature?
