Human Impacts – Threats to Ecological Balance


About five million years ago, an upright animal emerged on African plains. Gradually, these animals grew smarter and made tools for hunting. They discovered how to set fire and cook food. Even they began to talk, carved jewelry, and rendered wonderful cave paintings. About twenty millennia ago, they were beginning to look and behave like us. Yes, they were modern Homo sapiens.

About ten thousand years ago, the last ice age drew to a close. And those humans made another leap. They invented agriculture paving the way for sedentary life. Driven by pursuing own material goals, modern humans began to plunder natural resources. Gradually, stone ages gave way to metal ages culminating in industrial revolution. Since then humans’ growth and development are unprecedented till the moment I write this article on a word processor. But, this pay-off comes at a huge cost. Human activities drove many animals and plants to extinction. Our needs and greed are depleting pristine forest at an alarming rate. It turns out that human activities may usher in sixth extinction unlike the natural ones that happened millions of years ago. Let’s explore how human activities are conjuring up doomsday scenario.

Human activities like agriculture, urbanisation, and industrialisation destroy biodiversity. And unabated population growth adds to the woes. Mindless consumption and development lead to deforestation, increasing threat of global warming, species extinction and a host of other environmental hazards.


This is the introductory part of a recent invited lecture delivered by me at a seminar on Attack on Ecological Balance-Impact on Mankind held on 15th September, 2006 at Bose Institute, Kolkata, India.

In the forthcoming posts, I will elaborate on this issue at length, so keep an eye on my blog.