Daily Times

When Martin Sheen exclaimed, “Future generations are not going to ask us what political party were you in. They are going to ask what you did about it when you knew the glaciers were melting,” he was not wrong in showing his concern about the probable consequences of the perplexing phenomenon known as global warming. We homosapiens, the masters of this planet, have been quite concerned about the devastating effects of untamed anthropogenic activities being practised since ages. But we are still more inquisitive about finding life on other planets instead of saving the one already present, which has made us acridly more worried about melting ice creams than evanescing glaciers!

All environmentalists to date have talked about environmental wisdom. In order to show our love for the mother earth, we observe several events around the year, chanting slogans such as “Think; Eat; Save” and “Seven Billion Dreams; One Plant; Consume with Care”. While reading these simple sentences, I am oft-reminded of Garrett Hardin’s argument in his famous essay of 1968, “The Tragedy of Commons.” He skillfully said that a property held in common by a number of people is eventually destroyed or at least overused until it completely deteriorates. His particular example of a pasture and herdsmen can undoubtedly and aptly be equated with that of our beloved blue marble and its denizens, particularly humans.

Our environment can be categorised as moderately integrated and highly complex. According to Gaia hypothesis, Earth is similar to an organism and its component parts are integrated like cells in a living body. However, many scientists do not completely agree with the Gaia hypothesis and still insist that the global environment is less integrated than the supposition argues. This does not at all mean that the environment is unconnected, but that the system is so vast with the interconnections so complex that the exact position of the Earth’s system on the ‘integration gradient’ has yet not been determined. The two aforementioned key traits of the environmental system greatly hinder social responses to environmental problems. The four spheres, with their matter cycles and energy flows, have numerous components operating at many scales, hence, making unpredictability a fundamental characteristic of complex systems.

This concern about the inability to predict how the environment usually responds to changing conditions was first brought to the limelight by Rachel Carson. She believed that people would protect only what they loved and, therefore, she worked to establish a “sense of wonder” about nature. In her best-selling books, she used simple and, sometimes, sentimental narratives and analogies about the oceans to articulate sophisticated ideas about the inner workings of largely unseen things. It was in 1962 that she decided to author the renowned book “The Silent Spring” after witnessing the widespread use of DDT and other long-lasting poisons in so-called agricultural control programmes. Her efforts and the resulting rise in public concern led to the passing of landmark environmental legislation by the US congress in forthcoming years.

We, the humans, have one common preference — to eat healthy food. This inclination remains constant throughout the food supply chain. By food supply chain, I am referring to all those stages through which food passes, starting right from its harvest to the consumer’s mouth. After all, the end user of all processes and preservation techniques, i.e. the supply chain, is the consumer. Though we all wish for a perfect life with fresh and healthy food, why do we snatch this right from others? Why do we steal others’ resources and materials just to make our lives restful and pleasant?

Pakistan, for instance, is said to produce more than 4000 types of dates. This can earn high foreign reserves and favour the balance of payments for our country. Unfortunately, like most other developing countries, we lose over 37 percent of our produce due to incompetency and lack of preservation facilities. The food waste can be traced back to managerial, technical and financial constraints in harvesting techniques as well as cooling and storage facilities.

However, the ways in which food is wasted in developed countries is quite different from those in developing and low-income countries. In the case of industrialised countries, the behaviour of the consumers plays a huge part. The dependency of people on fast food as a convenient source of nutrition has made this problem enter an alarming situation. People now generally focus on the ‘here and now’ of local space and the current time, respectively. We mostly think about things around us and things that have recently happened or can happen to us in the near future. It would not be wrong to say that we are slaves to our short-sighted approach.

Consequently, approximately one-third of the food produced in the world for human consumption is wasted by consumers in rich countries every year. Around 1.3 billion tonnes of food is roughly wasted. The idea sounds completely absurd: how could a man throwing a burger in the bin account for such a large amount of wastage? In actual, every person contributes his minor share in the food crisis. An individual is not the only one who does not think before throwing the food initially bought to satiate food-lust; he is just an example representing half of the world’s population. We throw away vegetables and fruits with minute imperfections without realising that we can actually save them from being wasted by using our environmental wisdom and slicing the defected portion so that the rest could be used normally. By analysing closely, we can identify two major factors contributing to the prevailing vicious cycle of food wastage and shortage. One part of the world is overwhelmed with natural resources but lacks technological advancement, whereas the other region has been successful in developing industries and progressing in technology but is deficient in resources. Environmentalists have referred to these problems as the Bomb of the South and the Bomb of the North, respectively.

The current stage of human development has been titled as ‘Transition’. It has also coined the term ‘sustainability’ which means meeting the needs of today without reducing the quality of life and environment for future generations. With the rapidly increasing world’s population, the throughput of food materials has also greatly heightened; we are consuming more resources and producing more waste than ever. Despite the economic impact of food wastage, it also leads to wasteful use of fertilisers, pesticides and fuel required for transportation that leaves indelible impacts on our environment and, eventually, the Earth.

We need to change our approach. We must become aware of our surroundings and living standards of our fellow humans who have an equal right to live. As the growing population has put much pressure on the environment, the idea of sustainable consumption seems to serve as the only light in the dark. We can change our unsustainable living standards through environmental wisdom so as to reduce our ecological footprint. After all, this planet is the only place we can call home.

Aminah Suhail Qureshi is a student of Biotechnology with an interest in current affairs, politics and journalism