The Earthship Enterprise

Who needs the Starship Enterprise? We are on the Earthship and make annual treks around the sun navigating through space, the final frontier.

The only difference is that all the strange species we are supposed to encounter, both hostile and friendly, are right here on our ship and we hardly notice them until they are on the endangered list.

As for the big holes in our atmosphere, we are oblivious to them unless some environmental 'extremists' start throwing water balloons and smashing windows at the G8 summit.

This may cause some of us to pause and ponder for a bit but that is it. We then pretend to be deaf while environmentalists scream themselves hoarse.

In Trekkie talk, we have lost our shields and are under attack but are doing nothing to protect ourselves. We are the only species that has the capability to halt destruction, but choose to ignore the mass extinction that takes place around us. Luckily, the Federation (the United Nations) seems to think differently.

According to a United Nations Environment Programme study, the Earthship's species are dying out at an alarming rate.

Scientists estimate that as many as 137 species disappear from the Earthship each day, which means an astonishing 50,000 species go extinct every year.

Unfortunately, Captain Picard (the US government) prefers to ignore these issues, especially global warming. He is not interested in getting Data to repair the shields and fight back - he is more interested in Weapons of Mass Digging and proving that something he claimed was there is, or was, and also in using the current data to make new weapons.

The Pentagon's top strategists are very much into the new-age weapon and to understand what has got them so excited, read the report: Weather as a Force Multiplier: Owning the Weather in 2025, which essentially explains how it will be possible to wage weather wars without using soldiers. This is not science fiction.

Not that the rest of the crew, including myself, are doing anything substantial to save our Earthship. We are aware the weather is changing because of global warming and we are not immune to it.

Just as signs of climate change have become a reality as we experience hazardous weather, scientists are losing some of their ability to keep track.

Funds are being reallocated to more important studies, such as those on the mating patterns of rats! This is frustrating most climatologists and making sceptics grin.

The situation is alarming. The monsoons are not conforming to established patterns anymore in South Asia. People are dying in heat waves worldwide.

Africa is facing biblical drought. In North America, brush fires are burning up large areas and causing destruction on a scale larger than ever before, while earthquakes and tornadoes take their toll in west and southeast Asia.

With the disappearance of rainforests, hacked down in the name of development, we are destroying habitats. This means we are burying hundreds of species in mass graves.

And the best idea we can come up with is emission trading thought up by some 'geniuses' and included in the Kyoto Treaty. Are we unable to use our brains anymore?

But would you really be interested in the extinction of a micro-organism or an insect? I think 99 per cent of us couldn't care less. But what if you were told that the extinction of the insect would lead to the destruction of the fertility of the soil from where your food comes? That would most likely get your attention.

What if you were told that these organisms are the ones that act as natural filters for clean air, water and earth? Soon most of them could be extinct.

Maybe that is why we need an Environment Day - to make us aware that our Enterprise is going to the dogs. If we do not do something fast, most species, including our own, will be on the endangered list.

What kind of a world does this leave for our children and grandchildren? We would repair a broken window in our own house, but not on our Earthship. Why? The thinking seems to be: "Others will take care of it while I sit in my air-conditioned room, eating 'health' foods and watching the economic summits on TV".

Unfortunately, the others are doing the same thing.

Our Earthship is in need of major repair and we cannot ignore it. The cost could be our own extinction.

For starters, see how you can bring down your electricity bill and save yourself some money in the process.

Buy more organically grown vegetables and fruits - they are good for your health and enable poor farmers in Third World countries to fight bio-modified seed giants such as Monsanto. Listen to what the environmentalists have to say and ask questions.

It is that easy.

Earthship alert! Security breached and there is no safety zone. Everyone to their stations to start repairs.

Deepa Kandaswamy is an award-winning writer, political analyst and author based in India.