There were times when events and phenomena of seismic proportions laid waste of the planet in the past. From the demise of the giant dinosaurs to the obliteration of civilisations such as the Sumerian, Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Inca and Harappa-Mohenjo-Daro, the list is long. While the planet Earth's convulsion accounted for destruction of civilisations, the two World Wars (I&II) were responsible for the highest number of casualties---about 20 and 80 million respectively. Yet the human civilisation survived the great wars and has since prospered---prospered phenomenally.
What is notable is that the World War I ended on November 11, 1918 and this was the year when the Spanish flu or the influenza pandemic broke out. The pestilence stalked Europe, the main war theatre, for the following year and claimed, according to the most conservative estimates, 21 million lives --- more than the casualties of the war. However, the death toll of the influenza pandemic then, according to other estimates, was between 40-60 million.
This time a war between two neighbouring countries, once federation members of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR), has broken out with the potential of escalating all across the globe. This apparently localised but also a proxy war fought by Ukraine's allies in Europe and America with monetary, material, moral and even military support has already had a devastating impact on economies and livelihoods of people the world over, of cataclysmic order particularly in its poorer pockets and corners.
The Covid-19 pandemic has accounted for 6.6 million lives worldwide so far, which is much less compared with the Spanish flu's death toll thanks to the development of vaccines in record times. But this pandemic and the Russo-Ukraine war together have brought the highly developed human civilisation at the crossroads in more than one sense. Many Ukrainian cities and towns including Kyiv has literally been reduced to rubbles and the majority inhabitants of those have now become refugees mostly in Poland and Romania.
But its wider implications have raised the spectre of a famine across wide swathes of this planet. Already the countries around the world are reeling from the combined effects of accelerated rise in fuel and food prices. Secondly, the erstwhile Soviet Union which was the worst sufferer in the war and had lost between 20-27 million civilians and military personnel in the Wold War II is now in a war with itself. Russia has become the aggressor. But even a bigger threat panicked the world at large when the Russian president hinted his option for nuclear arsenals in the continuing war with Ukraine.
One hopes the threat has disappeared. But after the withdrawal of Russian troops from Kherson, there is no guarantee Putin will take the reversal lying down. It is not just a question of humiliation but also an acceptance of a far bigger enemy's presence right under its nose. For any leader worth its name this is hard to stomach. Blaming Putin for the war is easy but the geo-politics could not be nastier to provide fuel to the fire.
At a time when the cold war has long become a thing of the past and more particularly the world was heaving a shy of relief by getting release from the Covid-19's stranglehold, the pernicious backdoor policy backstabbed the economic turnaround. In the process, the US has been able to advance greenback exchange value riding on the fomenting energy prices on the one hand and the NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) interests right at the doorstep of Russia, on the other.
Thus the larger issue of climate change has received a body blow as nations irrespective of rich or poor have fallen back head over heel upon dirty fossil fuels instead of opting for green energy. So here is a triple threat of hunger or famine in vulnerable part of the world, a recession in the developed countries and a nuclear war which, if at all takes place, will wipe out the present civilisation from the face of the planet Earth.
Even if none of these materialises, the fourth and no less an ominous prospect is the world's inexorable relegation to a burning cauldron unless the use of fossil fuels and carbon dioxide release can be arrested before the global temperature crosses the threshold set at 1.5 degree Celsius above the pre-industrial level.
Had the multinational oil companies and other businesses the world over not opted for making up for the business losses or slumps suffered during the pandemic in double quick time, the armed conflict in Ukraine and a kind of unwritten trade war now going on could be avoided. Sheer avarice and blind pursuance of self-interests have led to the hopeless patch the world today finds itself in.
This exposes the arcane advancement the present human civilisation has achieved on the lines of materialistic and consumerist aspirations at the cost of equitable socio-economic and prerogative rights and power for all. All these are elements that may act as the incendiary of a ticking bomb to explode for the humanity to succumb to it.
