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Chapter-II ENVIRONMENTAL DEGRADATION - RISK
TO HUMAN SURVIVAL Need for environmental concern
In the name of growing more food and providing more comforts our forests are being denuded; in the name of industrial growth we have polluted our rivers and seas, heated up the globe and depleted the ozone layer that shields the planet from harmful radiation. Environmental degradation is a grim reality that affects all our lives. Environmental concern is the common talk of every civilised citizen all over the world. But is this only an intellectual exercise of the urban elite, a topic to be discussed at international seminars, or is it somewhere close to its practical implementation?
Perhaps these issues are still more intellectual than practical. Still intellectual awareness is the first step to practical implementation. Hence it is certainly not a wrong start. Right attitude and right knowledge are definitely prior to right action for the attainment of the goal. Jaina scriptures throw light on this order of knowledge and action where right attitude and right knowledge come first and right action come later. (Tattvārtha Sūtra 1.1.) However, in all genuineness and honesty, we should not stop ourselves only at intellectual understanding of environmental degradation. We should practically work for controlling this . Environmental degradation is man's own creation . He is fully responsible for having generated this environmental crisis. He is suddenly becoming aware of this self made situation, a riddle-like situation from which he wants to come out. Scientists, technologists, economists, industrialists and politicians and thinkers have all realised the problem of environmental hazards and pollution-a problem that threatens man's very existence on the planet earth. This has made us more conscious than ever before of the interrelation of man and nature. Environmental pollution is simply a symptom of a grave maladjustment between man and nature. The close relation of man and nature since the prehistoric days in the sense of 'made for each other' as prakrti and puruşa has taken an about turn. The relation now is that of exploiter and exploited.
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