The true definition of disaster

It could have been worse.

The monstrous sea waves lash against flimsy beach houses every day. Several of them have already been washed away. There’s no telling which one’s going to go down next. We were warned not to build our houses so close to the sea; not before we’ve reversed the climate change at least. We ignored the warning, of course. The sea level kept rising, but we did not budge. Nobody likes to walk in knee-deep salty water day in and day out. But nobody likes to admit they were wrong either.

We can’t take out our cars, only kayaks and makeshift boats for us now. The kids don’t play soccer anymore; it’s not exactly a water-sport. Dragging your feet through thick mud is the new definition of a long walk. It’s not very pleasant, but it could have been worse.

The thick clouds of smoke have been coming down at us for quite some years now, like an endless army of ravenous demons. We can’t see the sun rising, the alarm clock our only signal for daybreak. The windows stay shut all year round. We never thought burnt toasts or cigarettes would have had a part to play in all of this. We were always looking for ways to drive the smoke as far away from us as we could. We didn’t care to check where it went, so long as it was out of our sight.

We thought we couldn’t afford to worry about climate change, lest that were to stop us from progressing. We genuinely believed we could get away with all the pollution citing development in our defense. Thousands of gigabytes of terrifying emission data were presented to us, we preferred to look at the pleasing sales figures instead.

Now, the smoke dominates the streets. We’ve been given face masks that supposedly keep the smoke at bay. But honestly, we’re fooling ourselves thinking they actually work. They have nothing but scars and discomfort to offer. Still, things could have been worse.

The landslides keep turning acres of beautiful forests into tons of stinking sludge. How did we cause that now? some ask indignantly from their mahogany houses. The kids kept marching through the streets, yelling “Grow more trees! Grow more trees!” at the top of their lungs. “No more trees!” some of us had responded in jest. That it could end up being the reality had not crossed our minds.

Now, we find ourselves longing for trees to pluck fruits from. To build rope swings for our grandchildren. The kids refuse the polythylene substitutes we provide them, naturally. They want the trees back, the real ones. We’re tired of telling them it’s not possible. It pains us to see them cry every day, but it could have been worse.

The rivers had started to show signs of flooding. The climate activists had left no stone unturned in trying to highlight the issue. We had repaid them by ridiculing them, calling climate activism a woolgatherer's pastime.

The scientists kept on coming up with proofs after proofs about how the climate change was real and what we stood do lose if we didn’t change our lifestyles. We denied it all. We labelled the scientists as agents of pessimism and their theories as science fiction. They kept their efforts going but, without public support, how far could they have gone? Not a single child today aspires to be a scientist; less out of despair and more out of resentment, we think. At a time when we need the support of as many scientists as we can get, not one is to be found. A dreadful scenario indeed, but it could have been worse.

The dying animals have caused the ecosystem to collapse, turning well-formed forests into rotten dumps. We had offered them alternative places to live: sanctuaries where they could bask in heckling all day long, cages they could only hope to come out of if they were sick or dead. But, they had refused it all. They would rather die sitting beneath a perishing tree than live under the shade of inauthenticity.

Our windshields have been squeaky clean of late, with no birds to dirty them. We used to throw leftovers at them, hoping it would absolve us of destroying their habitat. They were crying in agony, we thought they were chirping in delight.

We were asked not to litter their world as we had littered ours. We should not have partitioned the world in the first place.

With no cats purring through the alleys, no sparrows greeting us as we stand by the windows, it’s getting harder to look forward to the day. But it could have been worse.

The air conditioner, a modern marvel that makes a liter of air cooler by warming gallons of it, still buzzes in our houses, timidly. We’ve kept the tradition alive of heating the air outside with the overuse of the ACs, then turning the ACs on full blast because it’s getting hotter. The temperature outside keeps soaring. We can’t help it. We were given the option to go green. We’re forced to turn pale instead.

All of this has made the world unlivable, a world no one would want to be a part of. But, believe me when I say this, it could have been worse.

We could have left Earth for Mars.

There were thousands, if not millions, of voices urging people to leave Earth and head for Mars, for a fresh start. We were asked to salvage what we could from Earth and prepare to live the rest of our lives on a different planet.

I’m glad we paid no heed to them. I’m glad we didn’t leave Earth to fend for itself and flee to Mars like cowards. We’ve accepted our fault and have chosen to fix our planet for the future generations, if not for ourselves. Disfiguring a planet that has given us so much and turning our backs on it, that would have been the ultimate disaster.

Imagine you’re writing in a book on a clean, blank page. You keep writing without bothering to check for errors. A while later, you decide to assess what you’ve written. You notice countless errors, most of them irreversible. Now, with the intention of making a fresh start, would you buy a new book or simply turn the page?

Must we move to Mars? Can we not start over on Earth? Sure, it is inhabitable currently. We rendered it that way. It might be centuries before Earth gets back to its former glory. But why should that stop us from doing anything we can to make the situation better?

It might be hard at the moment to wake up and be hopeful, but I know things won’t stay like this forever. The kids might not want to be scientists, but I know they’re as eager to create a better tomorrow as they are to see it. The efforts of the scientists won’t go in vain. The seeds they had cloned, we can grow forests out of them. We’ll soon get the pleasant shade back, one the animals would want to live to sit under. The air has had enough conditioning, it’s time for our minds to get some.

Instead of dreaming of a better life on Mars, we’re going to create the best one on Earth.