By Mohammad Al-Mahdi
By the end of World War II and as we discovered the great ozone hole near Antarctica by the late 1970s, since then we have been hearing a lot about how to ‘Save Earth and Humanity’ in our schools and educational institutes. Today, most world governments and NGOs spend a lot of their resources on these issues. From media and social networks, we can feel a great deal of how the peoples, industries, and organizations are serving the environment by reducing wastes, and by providing jobs and health certification to their people. And as we were told by the media that now people are getting aware of the risks of an unhealthy lifestyle, and the governments are taking strict actions. But what if we find these agendas not that effective as we were told ? And what if we find the road maps drawn by different organizations by using soft slogans like ‘Save Earth’ or ‘Save Humanity’, instead of giving benefits to the countrymen and environment, are assisting the politicians? We can trace hundreds of such cases that point to the fact that these programs are not meant for the benefit of common man or general environmental improvement, but for the government’s own strength and power.
According to some careful estimation, a mere 100 nuclear weapons are enough to destroy the entire humankind. Do we really know how much such types of weapons do we really have? According to the Federation of American Scientists, the total number of nuclear warheads worldwide ranges from about 13,410 to 14,000. The figure is far away from our imagination. What will happen if we start using them during our conflicts? The reason for having so many nuclear powers is of course not anything else but to show the strength of the nation. At least if someone told this reason that we have so many nuclear warheads just for our country’s strength, not even I can completely trust him. Or maybe I consider the situation crazy. What is the reason to show how much we can destroy ourselves? Why not show our strength by helping other nations? We always remember that the power of a nation is education, teaching institutes, laboratories, and of course a healthy environment. And who even cares how many bombs and nuclear weapons do you have. Take the case of Russia and the United States on this matter, because they are some major countries, supporting the organizations working for environmental support. Neither the United States nor the Soviets can explain why they both have approximately 1,600 active nuclear warheads.
The subject becomes more complex when we move a bit deeper in our analysis. Since 9/11, it is estimated that just over 800,000 people have been killed in wars and conflicts. And in most of the cases, we can find the involvement of the U. S and other Middle Eastern countries. And if we have remembered the “ghost towns of Syria”, according to UN reports, at least 400,000 people, including children, have been killed from 2011 to 2016. We do not know about the current situation because of there is no recent data available. But we know from some other sources that by the end of 2019, 79.5 million people were disturbed because of wars, battles, conflicts, and human rights violations. Our data does not even stop here. About 822 million people suffer from undernourishment globally. Every day about 25,000 people die because of hunger, according to UN reports. More than half of all deaths in children under the age of 5 are for these reasons.
Under the Trump administration, we witnessed a significant cut in contributions of funds to the agencies which were working for the environmental recovery. The reports told us that from 2016 to 2018; the support came down to around one-third of the previous budget. The problem with us is not funds or human resources, as the COVID-19 had proven. The estimate by the International Monetary Fund to fight the pandemic is approximately 9 trillion U.S dollars (we must be informed that the total annual budget for countries like U. S is approximately $4.7 trillion). So if we can make such an immense effort to fight against the novel virus, why not spend some substantial amount to fight hunger–the deadliest of all viruses?
Our future lies on our present acts, and by seeing the current situation we cannot say how near we are from our end. The programs till now are not sufficient and had failed to give support to our lifestyle and for some people, let me say survival. The funding and programs, till now we can say, are all running on propagandas. There is no reality in these agendas at all. Leastwise give the chance to others who want to make the change. Not a single will survive as we experience nature’s cry, we cannot blame them because this generation will have to suffer, not our leaders and elders.
***
Author’s ID: Mohammad Al-Mahdi is a young student scholar from India. He can be reached at mahdimohammad2002@gmail.com.Twitter account: @MohdAlMahdi_
