In recent years, the truth of the climate problem has become more and more apparent. A few examples include the Mendocino Complex fire in California in 2018, the Australian bushfires in 2020, and the record heatwaves across the northern hemisphere in 2022.
The greatest health threat to humanity now is climate change, which jeopardizes 50 years of advancements in development, global health, and eradicating poverty.
The hypothesis of anthropogenic climate change holds that burning fossil fuels like coal, oil, and natural gas by people is mostly to blame for the current climate changes. The need for power, water, transportation, food supply, etc. rose tremendously over the past ten years as more people moved from rural to urban regions. The more fossil fuels are used, the more greenhouse gases are released into the atmosphere, causing the greenhouse effect and global warming to worsen. Due to the continued increase in these emissions, the Earth is currently 1.1°C warmer than it was 200 years ago. (Harvey, n.d.) The most recent ten years in particular were the warmest on record.
Intense droughts, water scarcity, forest and brush fires, increasing sea levels, flooding, melting polar ice, catastrophic storms, and a decline in biodiversity are all effects of climate change. A man-made catastrophe, climate change is mostly brought on by carbon emissions. The Earth is still seen by us as an inexhaustible resource that can be used.
According to a 2020 study that was published in Scientific Reports, if humanity keeps using the natural resources at the same rate, it may result in the extinction of humanity within the next 50 years. (Davidson, n.d.) The likelihood that human civilisation will still exist in 2100, under the study’s most optimistic scenario, is less than 10%. The purposeful and ongoing degradation of the environment by humans signals the end of a way of life for both people and the web of life that sustains them. We refer to this as omnicide.
Human rights expert and University of Sydney sociology professor Danielle Celermajer defines omnicide as bringing to mind a crime “we have never imagined because we have been unable to experience it before.” We are currently experiencing “the slaughter of everything,” since billions of animals and birds are already dead over the world, and millions of people are already suffering from negative health repercussions. (VAUGHAN-LEE, n.d.)
Is it possible to halt this omnicide, often known as “the killing of everything”? Can people who are moving from rural to urban regions in quest of a better life be stopped? Can we prevent produce from other continents from being stocked on the shelves of our supermarkets? We believe that technological advancements or the planting of numerous trees could prevent the end of our current way of life. We believe that we would be able to carry on with our energy-intensive way of life, though perhaps with energy that came from renewable sources rather than fossil fuels. We keep attempting to visualize the effects of the impending climate disaster while ignoring reality.
We must begin thinking and acting differently if we want to prevent this collapse, also known as the omnicide. To begin with, some of us, particularly those who were born and raised in rural regions but moved to metropolitan places for further education and employment, could plan to retire in rural areas and practice permaculture, or regenerative agriculture, to sustainably generate their own food.
Regenerative agricultural practices such as permaculture incorporate an all-encompassing design to build livable communities and food producing systems. (HOLMGREN, n.d.) Making each system component as multipurpose, self-sufficient, and integrated as possible is the main goal. It is a great concept that can be used anywhere, including your backyard and the wild. The fundamental idea of permaculture is to work with nature rather than against it.
The idea is not brand-new. The Australian biologist Bill Mollison introduced it for the first time in the 1970s. “Conscious design and maintenance of agriculturally productive ecosystems that have the diversity, stability, and resilience of natural ecosystems,” according to Mollison, is what permaculture is. It is the sustainable provision of people’s food, energy, housing, and other material and non-material necessities by the peaceful coexistence of landscape and people.
Permaculture has 3 core tenants (GroCycle, n.d.):
Care for the earth: In other words, help all life systems continue to exist and multiply. Because if we don’t have a healthy planet, humans can’t exist at all.
Care for the people: Allow people to access resources they need to survive.
Fair share: You should only take what you need, and reinvest any surplus. Any extra can go forward to helping fulfil the two other core tenants. This includes returning waste products back into the system so it can be made useful again.
Permaculture can assist in addressing global issues like climate change. At least half of the carbon in soil is thought to have been released into the atmosphere over the ages. Permaculture, according to some environmentalists, might be a means to return this carbon to the soil. Recent proposals to halt global warming were made by American author, activist, and environmentalist Paul Gerard Hawken through his project Drawdown. According to Hawken, expanding regenerative agriculture—which shares some characteristics with permaculture—from its current 43 million ha to 400 million ha by the year 2050 could prevent 23.2 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide from being released into the atmosphere through sequestration and reduced emissions. This is the same as 65% of the carbon emissions worldwide in 2015. (Hawken)
The materialistic civilization that “prioritizes the interest of the individual over the interest of its society” should be put on hold as humanity shifts to a “cultural society” that respects the interest of the society over the interest of the person.
உழுதுண்டு வாழ்வாரே வாழ்வார்மற் றெல்லாம்;
தொழுதுண்டு பின்செல் பவர். – திருக்குறள் 1033 (Thiruvalluvar)
If it is not immediately possible, at least, for our retirement, let us plan to migrate to a rural area and practice permaculture in the interests of our future generations.
