PLACE OF THE SACRED IN SHAPING ECO-PERSPECTIVES

Abstract

A casual glance at The Hindu Survey of the Environment 20081 would reveal in summary the challenges humanity faces in India on the issue of conservation of natural resources, bio-diversity, and the environment. Waste management and pollution control remain a challenge for years despite the Central Pollution Control Board and several organizations like Greenpeace2 undertaking campaigns and offering parameters to minimize and to manage waste. Electronic trash and biomedical refuse are ever increasing, resulting in infections and other hazards. The climatic change and the growing earth warming is a widely researched fact due to higher carbon emissions from human activity. Harnessing the power of the sun, like in solar energy, is becoming revolutionary in lighting billions of lives. Wetlands and water banks, which provide innumerable services to local communities, are under threat; further, evidences indicate that solutions to protect coastal ecosystems are far from satisfactory. Needless to say, sustainable transport future may land us in undertaking fewer, shorter trips, greater use of public transport, number of walking and cycle trips. Problems abound on the issue of Genetically Modified crops, its health and other risk factors, conservation of forest and wild life, extinction of rare species, etc. States and non-governmental organizations engineer solutions to these problems with little success.