WHICH is the greater – Pakistan’s political degradation or its environmental degradation? At a cursory glance, it would seem they go hand in hand. With the bunch of politicians we have there is not much the common citizen can do on the political front, but he can be taught and warned as to the consequences of an ecological holocaust that will befall his children and grandchildren.

Reverting to a book to which I have previously referred, ‘Collapse : How Societies Choose to fail or Succeed’ by Jack Diamond (pub. 2005), I would recommend that it be translated into Urdu and made part of the new school curriculum which is beginning to take shape and conform with the world of the 21st century.

Diamond employs the comparative method to understand societal collapses to which environmental problems contribute. He focuses on collapses and compares many past and present societies that differed with respect to environmental fragility and other influences that affect a society’s stability. He lists eight factors which have historically contributed to the collapse of past societies : deforestation and habitat destruction ; soil problems (erosion, salinisation, and soil fertility losses); water management problems; overhunting ; overfishing ; effects of introduced species on native species ; human population growth ; increased per-capita impact of people.

He further lists factors which may now contribute to the weakening and collapse of present and future societies: human-caused climate change; build-up of toxic chemicals in the environment; energy shortages; full human utilisation of the earth’s photosynthetic capacity.

Amazingly, and without fear of contradiction from any source, it can be said that Pakistan, this great nuclear power is now inflicted by the eight historical factors and the four modern factors. Can collapse be far away? What are we leaving to the future generations?

Diamond cites Easter Island as one of the best historical examples of a societal collapse. This remote 64-square mile island lies in the Pacific Ocean, 2,000 miles off the coast of South America, 1,250 miles from the nearest inhabitable land of Pitcairn Island. Insignificant it may be, but its history is a grim warning to the world.

It settled in the fifth century, grew to its peak of social organisation by the 16th century and by the 18th century had collapsed. As the population grew, the islanders progressively decimated their forests and their land, then the animals, birds and fish, and brought about soil erosion with the leaching of nutrients. The root cause of the massive environmental degradation was the result of the deforestation of the entire island. The death of a complex political and social system was brought about by unsustainable development and practices and by a society laid waste by a lust for power and short-sightedness.

The fate of Easter Island has wide implications. Planet earth, like Easter Island, has limited resources to support human society and its insatiable demands. As on the island, the earth’s population has no practical means of escape. At the present rate of growth and swallowing up of resources, human beings are on the way to irreversibly damaging their life natural support systems.The reversion to Diamond’s ‘Collapse’ was brought about by a viewing last week of ‘An Inconvenient Truth,’ the film made by Al Gore (“I used to be the next president of the United States”), a truly thought-provoking and depressing experience, a film about a vital issue, arguably the most vital of all – the degradation of the world’s environment. ‘An Inconvenient Truth (also the title of a companion book) premiered in May 2006 and was released on DVD in November 2006. It is the third highest grossing documentary in the US to date.

Gore reviews the scientific evidence, the politics and economics of global warming and lays out with slides and graphs the consequences that global climate change will produce, within generations, if human-generated greenhouse gases are not drastically and swiftly reduced.

The year 2005 was the warmest year on record since atmospheric temperatures have been recorded and the ten warmest years on record have been since 1990. Icefields in Greenland and Antarctica are melting – polar bears and penguins are having a hard time – glaciers worldwide are fast retreating, and the romantically famous snows of Kilimanjaro may well have gone for ever by 2020.

If, as Gore predicts, a major polar ice sheet collapses, it will cause a sudden rise in sea level by 20 feet. He shows the effects this will have on Bangladesh and West Bengal, on the coastline of the US and the Netherlands, and on various other low-lying areas, how land will simply disappear. The Indus Delta will undoubtedly be similarly hard hit.

But all is not lost. If we, the human beings of earth, behave responsibly towards our planet, release less carbon dioxide and grow more plants and trees, the disaster can be averted. Deforestation is deadly, and Europe has realised this. Between 1990 and 2005 it has gained forest cover to the tune of 21.6 per cent. As for Asia, it has lost out and is minus 8.4 per cent of forest cover, India and Pakistan being the main culprits.

The government of the United Kingdom has just announced, following the release of the ‘Stern Review into the Economic Effects to the UK from Climate Change,’ that it will issue copies of the DVD of ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ to every secondary school in England and Wales, and in Scotland it will be science curriculum for fourth and sixth year students. Our education and scientific government gurus may consider translating the film into Urdu and distributing it to all our educational and scientific institutes. Our many TV channels, government and private, should do the same and show the film in prime time – it would make a welcome and practical change from the interminable talk shows with their never changing casts.

I have spoken to Professor Pervez Hoodbhoy who teaches science in Islamabad and asked him to convey to our heavyweight worthies, guardians of our heritage, as to what looms ahead. He says it is difficult as many do not (cannot?) read or comprehend, but he will try to have the Al Gore film shown to the country’s children.

The Stern Review, authored by Sir Nicholas Stern, formerly of the World Bank, recently presented to the British government, affirms that the entire planet is being affected by climate change, with the poorest countries suffering first and most dramatically. Average temperatures on earth could rise by 5C from pre-industrial levels and by the middle of this century 200 million people may be permanently displaced by rising sea levels. Global food production will be seriously affected. A mere 2C temperature rise could leave up to 40 per cent of living species extinct. Stern’s three-pronged immediate action: carbon pricing, technology policy, and energy efficiency.

Where lies Pakistan in all this? Blissfully ignorant and utterly careless. Deforestation is the order of the day. Concerned citizens all over the country, from Peshawar, over to Murree, down to Chakwal, to Lahore – in fact, in every city of Punjab – in Balochistan, in upper and lower Sindh and in Karachi, are raising their voices, putting pen to paper every day. And what do the lords of the land do, to whom governance has so recklessly been handed over?

They chop, chop, chop, so that they can build, build, build and erect outmoded industrial plants discarded by the western world because of the danger they pose to the environment. To blazes with the generations to come! What matters is now, and the many pockets that must be filled to overflowing.

E-mail: arfc@cyber.net.pk