Book Title: World of Philosophy
Author(s): Christopher Key Chapple, Intaj Malek, Dilip Charan, Sunanda Shastri, Prashant Dave
Publisher: Shanti Prakashan
View full book text
________________
The Contribution of Indian thought towards the Philosophy of Environment and Ecology in the emerging age of Global Society.
- Prof. S. N. Chaudhary
The Philosophy of environment and ecology has gained great momentum in the emerging age of global society, which shows man's concern for the maintenance of environment and eco-system as it is much needed for his own survival on this planet in the present era of science and technology. Man's untiring sincere efforts to conquer space and time and his other limitations by exploiting nature and its resources have made the life of human race much more comfortable and remarkable success has been achieved in the direction of the evolution of the globalcommunity. The developed sources of transportation and communication have brought the persons of different races, religions, culture and geographical regions much closer, as a result of which, the different societies are trying to understand, embibe and share the experiences, ideas and problems of each other in a better way. But as a side effect, it has also contributed a lot towards the global-race of uncared industrialisation, urbanisation, arms-race and careless over-exploitation of nature and it resources, which has resulted into grave damage to the environment and eco-system. Due to the critical level of pollution in the atmosphere and hydrosphere great heath-hazards are being faced by the living creatures including man, resulting into incurable diseases leading even to the extinction of so many creatures. The list of endangered species are getting bigger.
In this context serious concern for maintaining the purity of environment and eco-system (of recent origin) has down upon humanrace, which proves that the strong "will to survive" is still vibrant in human-race. The slogans of "narture nature" and "save the earth" are echoing throughout the length and breadth of the world and ways and means are being sought out to preserve the environment, which is considered to be the only way to maintain the 'eco-system'.
The term 'environment1 originates from the words 'environ1 and 'ment' which mean 'encircle' or 'around', and it ultimately denotes the surroundings that encircle us from all sides. The World-Dictionary defines environment as "the sum of all conditions, agencies and influences which affect the development, growth, life and death of an organism, species or race". The environmental ethics is almost synonymous to the term 'ecology', which has its root in the Greek words 'Oikos' and 'Logos', meaning 'study of home or habitat." Hence, ecology has been defined as "the study of organism in relation to their environment.1 To be more
619
