EARLY DEATH

                      Anything that is born is bound to die

But the process of death may be delayed or expedited. It now depends on us – the intelligent being on this unique planet – how we chose to treat our ‘ SMALL-WORLD’ !   Here is a list of the top 10 places you might remember dying its’ early death for reasons best known to us 

 1. The Alaskan Tundra – The coldest biome in the world, Alaska’s Tundra is severely affected by global warming and is at risk of disappearing very soon.

 2. The Great Barrier Reef – At 500,000 years old,  it is the world’s most complex ecosystem, larger than the Great Wall of China, the Great Barrier Reef is slowly dying due to pollution and climate change.

                   

3. The Dead Sea – The lowest place on earth, the Dead Sea is also a natural wonder. Its water’s healing properties are renowned and its below-sea-level altitude makes it one of the only places where people with psoriasis can get out in the sun without suffering. Sadly, with diversion of water from the Jordan River as well as industrial harvesting of the salt, the Dead Sea has been shrinking. Visitors today can see hotels and resorts that were once on the shoreline, now hundreds of meters away.

                 

4. Madagascar - World-famous for its lemurs, Madagascar has over 20 different species of lemurs and 80% of the flora and fauna on the island are unique to Madagascar. Sadly, the island’s entire eco system is being destroyed because of logging, poaching and land-burning (a way to clear land for farming). It is estimated that if nothing is done to stop this, Madagascar’s eco system will disappear in 30 years. 

     

                    

5. The Maldives – A Chain of roughly 1,900 islands in the Indian Ocean, the Maldives are a small taste of paradise. Most of the land in the Maldives is no higher than 5ft (1.5 meters), and with predicted rise in water levels, there is a great chance they’ll disappear in the next 10 years.

6. Glacier National Park – Located in Montana, the park is losing its signature glaciers at an alarming rate. Where once there were 150 glaciers, nowadays there are 25 left with experts warning that they might be gone by the end of the decade. 

 7. Patagonia - The largest ice fields in the world after Antarctica and Greenland, are in Patagonia. A recent study found that about 90 percent of the mountain glaciers in the region are melting up to 100 times faster than at any time in the past 350 years, and at least a dozen glacier-fed lakes have vanished virtually overnight in the last five years alone.

8. The Taj Mahal - One of the 7 wonders of the world, the Taj Mahal attracts over 3 million people every year. Sadly, due to air pollution and the crowds, its white stone facade is slowly eroding. It has become so problematic that tourism officials of India are considering closing this monument to the public by 2020.

9. Venice – With origins as far back as the 2^nd century C.E., Venice is one of the most renowned cities in the world, made famous for its canals and gondolas. Venice makes this list because it’s still sinking. At a rate of 2 millimeters a year (0.02 inches), the city is likely to either sink slowly to its final rest under the Adriatic Sea, or crumble as the sea-water corrodes the foundations of the buildings. And if that wasn’t enough, scientists now discovered that the city is also tilting to the east…

 10. The Florida Everglades - The largest subtropical wilderness in America and the largest mangrove ecosystem in the Western Hemisphere. With urbanization and water diversion, thousands of acres have disappeared, leaving the Everglades half the size it was a century ago. There is a national plan to save the Everglades, but whether it happens or not, only time will tell.

Spare a Thought

THE LAST GREAT WILDERNESSES

 

Robert Swan  is the first person to walk to the north and south poles.

Swan reached the South Pole on January 11, 1986, after 70 days of travel without any radio communication aid. Though he "did it for the excitement of being able to explore", the expeditions woke him up to massive environmental degradation taking place.

In 1986, he made the longest unassisted walk ever to the South Pole. Three years later he went onto the North Pole and by the age of 33, he became first person in history to walk to both North and South Pole.

He has been awarded the Polar Medal by her Majesty the Queen and today is special envoy for youth for the United Nations

During this treacherous walk across the Antarctic, Swan's once ice blue eyes changed color to become light grey. He later discovered that this was owing to the hole in the ozone layer that lies above the continent.

Throughout the 70-day walk that claimed nearly all of their lives, he made a promise to the frozen world that surrounded him. A promise that if she protected them and let them live, then he would repay her somehow. Begging for his life at the time, the promise was a mere offering to the polar gods to grant him and his team a safe passage home. Only later did he realize that the weight of that promise would sit on his shoulders for the rest of his life.

In Swan's own words: "The greatest danger to our planet is the belief that someone else will save it ... The last great exploration on earth is to survive on earth." So as I gaze out the window into my future, I hope to see Antarctica in my midst. I only hope that our children's children will see it in theirs too. When you gaze out of the window into your future, what do you see?

"The places I go to, are trying to tell us something," he says. After 28 years of several such expeditions in both the Arctic and Antarctic regions, Swan feels there is little time to waste. He is trying to engage school and college students across the world in mitigating these impacts.

"No one is going to save the world for us. I have seen polar bears die because the ice has melted away. When I went to the Arctic even 20 years ago, the entire ice cap had melted. It's remarkably disturbing," he adds.

But even alarming trends such as these have failed to shake nations out of slumber. "The attitude toward environmental degradation in the West is retarded. This inspired me to come here. I have hope because I have great access to young people who love me and will listen to me," he says.

Swan is on a 50-year mission. The Madrid Protocol provides additional protection for the Antarctic Treaty and designates the continent as a 'natural reserve land for science and peace'. It also bans mining and mineral exploration in the region for 50 years. But this moratorium expires in 2041. "I want to make sure that this one place on earth is left alone. If we start using renewable energy, people will not exploit Antarctica for resources in future," he says.

He is currently preparing for another major expedition to the South Pole in 2015, 30 years after his first. Swan says that it may be his last trip to the poles after which he will pass the responsibility for another 50-year Antarctica mission to his son and other youngsters. For now, he desperately hopes that the world will spare the 'last great wildernesses' for posterity

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"We are the most dangerous species of life on the planet, and every other species, even the earth itself, has cause to fear our power to exterminate. But we are also the only species which, when it chooses to do so, will go to great effort to save what it might destroy" -- Wallace Stegner

"Only when the last tree has died and the last river been poisoned and the last fish been caught will we realize we cannot eat money" -- Cree Prophesy

Let us all hope that we never bear witness to this day, for it be unimaginably sad. Let us instead react and respond to the myriad of problems facing our world and strive towards a more positive future where we live in greater equilibrium with our planet, our home, for she is all that we have.

"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step" - Chinese philosopher Laozi