Our Globe and its Environment

The Sahara Desert used to be pastureland with trees and plants and a highly advanced civilization was prospering there. The present desert was the result of excess cattle breeding regardless of the conservation of the nature. On our globe desertification is even now in progress as a result of wiping out the forests. Trees convert carbon dioxide in the air into oxygen. Toward this, phytoplankton in the sea also makes a large contribution. The sea itself has been polluted and accordingly a quantity of carbon dioxide over the earth is increasing. In addition, the enormous consumption of fossil fuel after the Industrial Revolution has emitted a mass of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. As a result, we foresee the dreadful future of the glove. First, the temperature of the earth will increase, second, the water in the sea will swell and at the same time the ice both in the glaciers and the North and South Pole will melt, and finally, the major cities along the sea coasts of the world will sink into the sea. On the other hand, we have recently a fear that human beings and other creatures will suffer from the bad effects of the shower of harmful ultraviolet rays that have passed through the ozone layers depleted by the reaction with chloro-fluorocarbon over the both poles.Moreover, we hear a gruesome scenario of the future that the toxic chemical substances called "environmental hormone" will affect our genes and deprive us of even the instinctive function. The nature is a grand-scale wastes treatment machine, however, cannot dispose the substances inexistent in the nature itself or the quantity over its processing capacity. The bad effect of this malfunction is certainly returned to us and we have well known about this through the experiences of pollution-related diseases like the Minamata Disease. I have once visited Yap Island in Micronesia before. In this island, large stone moneys are still in circulation and a number of the "men's houses", where the young single men of the island spend the night together, are found. I and the then girlfriend were exceptionally allowed to stay in one of those houses for a week. The rich nature provide the islanders with sufficient food. Coconut crabs were wandering here and there and big fish was easily caught by a cast of a net. These are the best food to have with beer. Summer lasts throughout the year in the island and so clothes are not necessary. The islanders were forced to speak Japanese by Japanese Army and they still remember the language. One day some of them told me in Japanese, "Don't go back to Japan and live in this island. You don't have to work here".

This is possible under the condition that population is neglectedly small for the nature. Around 30 years ago the Club of Rome issued a book "The Limit to the Growth". This book predicted that the population of the world would explode and that a serious food shortage would attack the world. The prediction was not wrong. According to the statistics of the United Nations, the world population will reach 6 billion in June next year. This is exactly a big bang of the population, for it was only 2.5 billion fifty years ago. With regard to the food problem, lots of people are in fact starving in many countries of the world, while the Japanese glut themselves with the food imported from the world.

Besides food, water and air were free in Japan during a long time. However, mineral water is recently sold at the same price as juice. By the agreement at the international conference held in Kyoto two years ago, the quantity of carbon dioxide to be emitted into the atmosphere is traded between the countries of the world.

Developed countries monopolize the scarce resources disappearing from the planet. A mass of tropical forests have been cut down and sold, however, in many places of the world there are still people who keep trees and water untouched and resultantly conserve the nature. We should not despise these people as the primitive, but thank them for this, because our life depends on them.

If we desire to consume more resources, even under this kind of difficult situation, we should make a more effective recycling system than that of the nature for disposal of the pollutants, so that we can protect the nature. In a spaceship with limited resources, everything is reused after recycling. In fact, we are traveling through the vast space of the Universe on the "Spaceship Earth".