We seem to have forgotten the sustainable development model. Though some faint voices are being raised now and then, they are drowned in the din and bustle created by the development mania. Let me analyse how in the past 2 centuries, we have messed up with Nature (with a capital N) and are facing the music apart from bequeathing a damaged and bruised earth to the future generations.

It all started with the Industrial Revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries. The world was a lovely place till then punctuated by the man-made wars now and then. Factories started belching smoke, textile mills created more and more tuberculosis patients and the global warming had started by then. Pollution control was thought of after almost two centuries of abuse of Nature and environment.
====Added on 25th Aug 2009
An article by Sunita Narain in CSE magazine says that the gases emitted since 1800 (start of industrialization) are still collected in the atmosphere and they continue to damage the ozone layer. This has strengthened my argument against industrialization. One generation or two have benefitted forcing the entire humanity towards extinction
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Our ancestors (not necessarily Indians but also Chinese and the Egyptians and Mesopotamians and even the Europeans) were living in comfort. They did not exploit the natural resources but used it for their comfortable living. I am sure they would have known about the coal deposits below the earth and the crude deposits also. So many saints and visionaries were roaming about the Himalayas in the Kamaroop (present Assam)) and they would have definitely identified that there were huge deposits of crude below. Those who could identify the Aluminium ores, Gold and Silver Ores and other metals, is it not logical to assume that they would have known about the coal and crude deposits? But I am sure they did not bring it to light for the one reason that these are non-recyclable whereas metals are recyclable.

But the Industrial Revolutionists went in search of more and more of coal deposits and today we get estimates of deposits that will last for a couple of hundred years more. In the history of mankind, couple of centuries is a very miniscule part and no development should be started which can sustain itself only for such a short time.

Another culprit for the present mess is the Crude oil. Earlier mankind was extracting oil from vegetation and was sure that this is a non-exhaustible source of energy at least for a few millenniums. We turned it upside down. We created energy out of the crude oil and the coal, two of the most polluting elements today.

Let me list out all the other “epoch-making” inventions and show how they are unsustainable:

1. Trains and motor cars that transported us very fast and are transporting the mankind itself very fast to oblivion by creating holes in the ozone layer and by being the cause of so many diseases afflicting us.
2. Our ancestors were also wearing clothes. They were not roaming around naked. But the textile mills we invented were the source of despair for the workers there.
3. Medicines like Penicillin, considered life-saving just 50 years ago are life threatening. Antibiotics come and antibiotics go each with varying degrees of damage to human body.
4. Our ancestors were not stinking. They were using soap like materials, aromatic beauty aids and ornaments. But now, the soaps and detergents are found to be eco-unfriendly and you find notices and appeals in all hotel rooms to help them reduce the use of detergents. The deodorants and the other beauty aids of modern day are again damaging the ecology.
5. The biggest of all offending inventions is the plastics. Considered as one of the greatest inventions, again in the fifties and sixties of 20th century, now they the most dreaded. They are getting banned in place after place.
6. Chemical fertilizers are another case in point. You heard in your childhood (if you are now in the fifties and sixties) that they created the green revolution. But within fifty years, they are now considered villains to the Mother Earth. You start hearing about “Organic fertilizers” and vegetables grown with them. You pay a higher price where as even 70 years ago, our farmers (and so also worldwide) were using natural manure and were growing healthy food. A development which turns villainous within 50 years cannot be called a sustainable development.
7. Creation of towns and cities is another example. A city like Madurai created thousands of years ago is able to sustain itself even now whereas cities like Mumbai with a history of just 300 years are bursting at the seams. Those who built temple towers of unimaginable height (many towers are much taller than the sky-scrapers of today), were not unaware of building dwelling units of that size and height. But they refrained from doing so because they were aware that it was not sustainable. Another point to note is that those churches and temples are living for thousands of years whereas the modern buildings’ lives are calculated in tens of years. I recently visited the ancestral home of my relative and was astonished to see the polish on the walls even after 2 decades of disuse. Note that the walls did not have “ceramic” tiles but just simple brick and mortar (not even cement).
8. Can you find one allopathic drug without side effect? How is that our traditional medicines and medicines from Homeopathy are attacking just the disease?
9. Weaponry is a sure recipe for disaster of mankind. People have been fighting wars ever since they started living as a society. Take Mahabharat war, even though it may be a mythological war for those who do not believe, it was conceived a few hundred or thousand years ago. It has not wrecked mankind just as a Hiroshima or for that matter any war up to the 19th century. You don’t develop something to destroy mankind. That is not development, leave alone Sustainable Development.
10. The latest to join the list is e-wastage. Oh! 1981 - the year when PC was launched by IBM is a landmark year in the history of mankind. Oops! that is the year when e-waste started accumulating. Read Dr Gpalji Malviya in this URL
http://epaper.newindpress.com/NE/NE/2009/07/16/ArticleHtmls/16_07_2009_011_002.shtml?Mode=1
Take asbestos, mercury and many other items which were developed without an eye on sustainabilty.
11. (added on 20th Aug) Asbestos is another. I have written another post on this. http://nellaisuresh.blog.co.uk/2009/08/19/mesothelioma-6762450/
12. (added on 24th Sep 2009) Pollution of rivers across the globe is another outcome of industrialization. We invented erecting industrial plants but never planned for treating the effluents especially leather tanning and chemical industries. Also fertilizer industries and ammonia based industries polluting the air and making the lives of nearby villages and towns hell, is common knowledge. I was speaking with my friends in Katowice Poland when they said that they were having enough of water for use but it was polluted by the industries. This problem is global. Left to himself man will pollute moon and mars also, now that Chandrayaan-I reports that there is enough traces of water in moon.

This is not an exhaustive list. I will be updating it as and when thoughts come to me.

Indian system consists of three phases for every action, whether it is life or pooja or anything. Aavahan, Utsarjan and Visarjan corresponding to the Hindu triumvirate Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva meaning Creation, Maintenance and Destruction. Nothing will be systematised unless it can go through these 3 phases and without consequences. But the modern world does not bother about the disposal. It is interested in churning out more and more inventions irrespective of whether they are sustainable or not. We are running faster into extinction than ever before.