This World Environment Day was different. The environment was remarkably clean. There is no magic though. More than 87 per cent of the global population was confined in their homes. And there is no denying the fact that technology, desire to move forward, multi-dimensional economic activities, and more and more expectations in lifestyle of the twolegged animal called ‘human being’ are primarily responsible for rapid worsening of the environment of this planet.

Our excessive CO2 emissions are modifying the atmosphere and increasing water use is changing the hydrosphere. According to the 2019 Global Climate Summary of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of the US, the combined land and ocean temperature has increased at an average rate of 0.07°C per decade since 1880; however, the average rate of increase since 1981 is 0.18°C, which is more than two and half times higher.

Consequently, summers are becoming more hot, arctic ice-sheet is at stake, and more and more glaciers are melting, resulting in a rise in the ocean-water level. Rising atmospheric and sea-surface temperatures are modifying the cryosphere. Severe air pollution has stalled the lifestyle of nearly half of the world. North India including Delhi, for example, struggles miserably due to smog during winter.

That’s certainly an annual ‘lockdown’ period in that part of the world! According to the Health Effects Institute’s flagship report ‘State of Global Air 2019’, air pollution is the fifth leading risk factor for mortality worldwide, which, in 2017, is estimated to have contributed to close to 5 million deaths globally – nearly 1 in every 10 deaths – and has reduced life expectancy by 1 year and 8 months on average worldwide. Our rivers – the lifelines of civilization – are dangerously polluted.

Coliform bacteria levels in the Ganges have been tested to be at 5,500, which is even unsafe for agricultural use, let alone drinking and bathing. Projects like ‘Nmami Gange’, for example, could not clean the Ganges even after hundreds of crore rupees were spent. According to a 2018 report, the groundwater in India is contaminated with nitrate in 386 districts, fluoride in 335 districts, iron in 301 districts, salinity in 212 districts, arsenic in 153 districts, lead in 93 districts, chromium in 30 districts, and cadmium in 24 districts – many districts having more than one toxic elements in groundwater.

And almost-immortal plastic has now wrapped up civilization completely – from deep inside the Atlantic to the peak of Mount Everest. Our increasing use of land, for agriculture, mining, houses, and roads, is modifying our biosphere. And our civilization is moving along with all these problems. Drastic steps to reduce pollution substantially are often detrimental to the economic and technological progress of mankind.

The passage of human civilization is all about this tug-of-war. We get tired of pollution, we become afraid as did Greta Thunberg. Sometimes we protest, and we even take some remedial steps to cut pollution a bit. However, do we really do enough to make this planet almost pollutionfree? The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change failed to ensure the stabilisation of greenhouse gases in the earth’s atmosphere, the UN Convention to Combat Desertification failed to stop land degradation and the Convention on Biological Diversity failed to reduce the rate of biodiversity loss as well.

World leaders were ambitious when they took resolutions in the Paris Agreement in 2015. But, that too failed to achieve at the desired level. What’s more, the US president dumped the treaty! Not surprisingly, when economic activities in most countries were stalled; the demand for oil and electricity fell drastically with factories, offices and schools closed and vehicles on road were remarkably fewer due to the pandemic, the amount of carbon in the environment became 5.5 per cent less than what it was last year. Covid could do the magic within only a few weeks.

The air became more comfortable to breathe, the sky became clearer. It is reported that dolphins and swans are seen at various coasts and canals. About 25 per cent more migrating flamingos painted the Mumbai wetlands pink. Poison in river water has surely decreased. It was reported that the air pollution was so less that the Dhauladhar range of the Himalayas was clearly visible from Jalandhar, a town 213 km away. Many environmentalists are happy.

A virus could succeed in what human beings failed to do for long. We knew that we were responsible for disrupting the environment. People now aptly ‘realised’ it. Personally, I am happy to take this ‘realisation’ as the takeaway of Covid from an environmental perspective. This is because all these changes are quite temporary. As soon as normal lifestyle and economic activities resume, rivers will start washing the sins of civilization, and the Dhauladhar range would rapidly move far away from Jalandhar’s sky.

Certainly, we would love to see the percentage of faecal coliform reducing in various rivers, particulate matters or carbon in air below tolerable limits, and of course global warming being halted. All these are urgently needed. But, certainly not in isolation from humanity. In the past, several environmentalists have propagated the concept of ‘anthropocentrism’, which is also known as homocentricism or human supermacism.

Australian philosopher and environmentalist Val Plumwood played a central role in the development of radical ecosophy or ecophilosophy (a portmanteau of ecological philosophy) since the 1970s. Plumwood argued against the “hyperseparation” of humans from the rest of nature – she called it the “standpoint of mastery”.

It might be interesting to note that the European Commission, the governing body of the European Community, has defined ‘environment’ as “the combination of elements whose complex inter-relationships make up the settings, the surroundings and the conditions of life of the individual and of society, as they are or as they are felt.”

Yes, environment alone without humanity has no significance. On the contrary, humanity is at the centre of things; there is no environmental value which cannot be traced to the welfare of human beings. Human-environment interactions are key to global environmental change.

Let’s plan how carbon emissions can be reduced by improving technology and reducing the number of cars, how technology can be implemented and human habits can be changed to purify river water, how ground-water can be made pollution-free, how the usage of plastic can be substituted by feasible environment-friendly alternatives.

And, act accordingly. In a nutshell, our endeavour should be to rejuvenate Mother Nature during normalcy without substantially compromising normal human activities. Combining ‘normal life’ and ‘clean environment’ is ‘the’ challenge, of course. And civilization is just another name of addressing this challenge.

(The writer is Professor of Statistics, Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata)