The earth produces so many valuable things that find mention in our everyday lives, but we never notice these things beyond casually using them. We are also constantly searching for some of these valuable things, and to get them in our possession we wouldn’t care less how we acquire them. Cloth, for instance, or gold, jewels, life inducing drugs, food or simply construction materials for our homes. As far as we are concerned these things don’t need much racking our brains over as the only requirement for getting them is cash. Also, the value system was a little different earlier when we needed a barter economy to run our lives, which made us naturally inclined to think of certain resources or produce according to the effort men put to get them. Cash is not a very accurate value for any produce toiled for by man, but it’s in use anyway now and is thought convenient for making transactions of any kind of goods.
We can see that in Bihar (now mostly Jharkhand) the biggest of companies in India, who claim to be humanely well meaning, but quite contrarily have been exploiting men and resources almost from as long back as mining at an industrial scale has been going on, have depleted any resources available there and not given the earth a chance to grow back. Of course we can’t deny that resources like minerals, fossil fuels etc. do get replenished but the amount of time it would take for coal deposits to grow back in Bihar is almost incalculable now considering the amount we have dug out from the earth’s bed. What is meant is that explorers should have a proper plan for replenishing the minerals and ores, as also other items, in the way we think of afforestation to be made possible. Even afforestation is a scheme not carried out perfectly though the process is as simple as digging the earth and planting some tree saplings. Minerals need more research and some basic facts to be applied like the various permutations and combinations of the periodic table elements, but it’s not to say that such research is not possible or not practically plausible in nature. However the government has no such applications available from the point of view of fundamental principles for growth, which nature automatically represents.
Plants to a large extent are responsible for what is in the soil, and also then, water is required to make the plants rich in attributes. Basically mineral content in the earth is decided by the reactions of the chemicals that cause the expansion or contraction, or the growth and decay of the plants, so that what matter comes from the earth goes back to the earth to replenish it again. So the quality of seeds we use are also primary, in farming especially. Seeds are given a chance to grow back into plants by a natural process of selection of species and too much undesirable research in this area has made the harvested seeds have lesser components of lively minerals. It’s like the various qualities of gold. They don’t cost the same or sparkle as much in the same way as vegetables or grains may not contain the naturally formed amounts of mineral content, both quality and quantity wise. This is like the way public transport systems are nowadays using more alloys of metals or synthetics unlike earlier times when metals like iron, tin etc. were in rich supply.
We don’t know the underground workings and formations of the earth but can with common knowledge be convinced that river water is carried along with the various deposits in catchment areas to other places beyond it too. That’s why we see that in catchment areas the quality of foods grown is much better than other areas, apart from the fact that the quantity of produce is also much more. It is like the process of digestion in the human body. The solid food going in is broken down and transformed into finer requirements of the body and according to the right quality and quantity of foods we take the body also remains healthy. The earth, water and seasonal plants are, also, similar to a process of digestion in the earth’s belly and we need to know what is best for the earth if it has to stay bounteous. Maybe the science of reactions behind this is too complicated for scientists to decipher but if we at least know the principle at work behind depletion or otherwise replenishment of the earth’s elements, we can save it from falling barren and sick, just like we may take a certain mixture of chemicals in a medicine to recover from an illness or weakness.
The point being made here is that we cannot go on blindly robbing the earth or man of its health and believe that it will come back to health by itself. This won’t be. Even the seeds we like to preserve traditionally will remain available only if we tend to the plants, otherwise the seed too will go with the plant and we’ll have to adapt to the new genetically manufactured seeds which have lesser food and nutritional value. Scientific research, in the sense of modern day science and technology, is bogus and is meant for the market, not for human benefit. If we understand this basic underlying factor, even while carrying out the scientific research consonant with changing times, we can reduce the harm we cause to the planet and re-visualize an idealistic life free of industrial drudgery, which is fit for human consumption.
