Man and Nature

Yesterday I saw the 2008 film The Day the Earth Stood Still. This is a remake of a 1951 film that I had seen in my childhood on TV once. The new movie is about aliens wanting to remove the human race from the earth so that it can survive while I think the old one was based on some weaponisation plans humans had in mind. Keanu Reeves' character says that he had come to save the planet which Jennifer Connelly interprets as saving humans, then she realizes that he wanted to save the planet from humans. Remember Agent Smith's comments in one of the the Matrix movies where he likens humans to a virus? Well, both of them do not sound so out of place when we saw what we are doing to our planet today. 

I was reading a forwarded Yahoo! article which says that microbes are busy cleaning up the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. This once again illustrates how nature cleans up man's messes. Man is capable of great innovations but occasionally he needs that incentive to survive or flourish (something similar to a line from the 2008 film). I believe that one of the reasons why advancements in the renewable energy have not been as quick as is desirable is that we still have an abundant supply of fossil fuels. In spite of global warming, pollution, fluctuating crude prices and what not we still guzzle fossil fuels. If the present government takes a firm decision to increase the fuel prices in line with global prices for India's long-term economic health hypocritical and opportunistic political parties raise a hullabaloo. This can in fact force people to look at alternatives (the government unarguably also has a major role to fulfill here). India and China are the world's largest bicycle manufacturers, but is their usage being promoted as much in India as in China? We have a huge power shortage and the announcements I see in the paper are all thermal power plants (gas-based if not coal-based).

So, more incentives need to be given to the renewable energy sector even if that means taking resources away from the fossil fuel based sectors. Automotive companies should be given incentives to develop sustainable technology. I wonder when world leaders will really implement these measures and more in full spirit.