These times of an escalating environmental crisis are supposed to be times of increasing peace and international cooperation as without this it is impossible to resolve the life-threatening environmental problems. Most discussion has been concentrated on climate change but in addition there are several other serious and interrelated environmental problems which together constitute an existential crisis.

These require all the creativity and attention of humanity but shockingly, the leadership of humanity is much more engaged with considerations of who will dominate the world instead of getting together to protect the endangered world. The quest for dominance among big powers and somewhat lesser powers in turn leads to an escalation of the arms race, also involving weapons of mass destruction or WMDs, which further adds to the existential crisis. In fact, WMDs now constitute the most important component of the existential crisis for humanity as well as other forms of life.

If about 10 per cent (about 1250) of the existing stock of nuclear weapons (about 12500) are used, this will be enough to destroy almost all life on earth. The fast increasing, largely unregulated use of AI and robotics in arms development is only making the problems worse, while the confirmed recent moves towards militarization of space herald an era of entirely new risks as well.

Meanwhile, largely unaware of such increasing risks for them and perhaps even more so for their children, an overwhelming majority of people go about their daily tasks. However, even here they face increasing problems. While many countries claim to have reduced their poverty levels in significant ways and increased their GNP in even more impressive ways, this is not reflected in the increasing problems people continue to face in meeting their basic needs.

Even the most wellendowed country with many extraordinary beneficial situations – the USA – is seeing strange conditions in which the bottom 30 to 40 per cent of the population faces problems in meeting at least one of the basic needs (health care, housing, basic utilities etc.), as revealed in surveys. This remains true both before and after the pandemic. Other highly developed countries like Britain, Germany and Canada too are facing difficult conditions. At the other extreme in countries like Sudan, South Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia, Yemen, Myanmar, Haiti, Ukraine and Afghanistan there are much more extreme forms of denial of basic needs due largely to man-made causes of injustice and strife (in Gaza of course the hunger and denial of basic needs is entirely man-made).

My own interviews with peasants and workers in many remote villages as well in urban slums reveal a persistence and, in some contexts, accentuation of many difficulties in meeting basic needs in satisfactory ways. Some of the worst situations of denial of basic needs as well as extreme insecurity faced by people, particularly women and children, exist in countries or regions where there is civil strife and this in turn is often linked to inter-faith differences and disputes.

It was hoped that in the 21st century humanity would be sufficiently advanced so as to respect all religions or at least not to fight on the basis of religious divides. Unfortunately such hopes have not been fulfilled as there are increasing cases of inter-faith disharmony and instigation of such disputes and differences for getting narrow gains. It was over 130 years ago that Swami Vivekananda had given the call for religious harmony and unity at the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago and the organizers of this great event had made a memorable contribution on the path of inter-faith understanding and harmony.

But still we have so much of entirely avoidable misunderstanding and strife based on these grounds in everyday life and this later becomes the cause of much bigger and bitter forms of violence too. Similarly, entirely avoidable ethnic, racial and caste violence continues unfortunately to be a part of the 21st century world. Where is the way out of these many-sided problems? This can be found by our troubled world by going back to the basics of peace and justice. As any unbiased understanding of world history would clearly reveal, human distress increased whenever the basic precepts of justice and equality, peace and social harmony (including inter-faith harmony) were violated and human distress deceased whenever these basic precepts were followed.

Based on this understanding, commitment to peace and harmony, justice and equality should get much higher, almost universal, acceptance, although of course these precepts can be implemented in various countries and regions in terms of the specific conditions prevailing there. For this the confusions and uncertainties created by many dubious efforts to justify the pursuit of other goals such as dominance, get ahead of others at all costs mentality, seizing control of as many resources as possible for self-gain, should be avoided. Various kinds of fundamentalist thinking, whether relating to religions or ideologies, should be discouraged so that rational pursuit of a path based on peace and justice, based on local conditions, is possible.

In addition, there should be increasing cooperation for tasks of environment protection. With more and more people committed to this and contributing to this in daily life, world-level efforts to check life threatening environmental problems, led by but not confined to climate change, will have much higher chances of success. Again, with people having much increased commitment to peace, it can become easier to reach agreement on elimination of weapons of mass destruction as well as to minimize the possibilities of war.

With more equal distribution of resources, with highly destructive expenditure on wars and weapons minimized and with environment protection providing better conditions for sustainable livelihoods as well as for reducing disasters, people will be able to meet their needs, and small comforts as well, in better and more assured ways. Hence with worldwide higher commitment to peace, harmony, equality, justice and environment protection, win-win solutions are still possible despite all the difficulties and uncertainties of present times.

(The writer is Honorary Convener, Campaign to Save Earth Now. His recent books include Protecting Earth for Children, Planet in Peril and A Day in 2071.)