Our earth indeed has traveled a long way to meet the first signs of life that emerged 3.8 billion years ago. A rocky deserted land of blood-red oceans, blanketed by a dense toxic atmosphere of those times might seem uninhabitable for the concept of life as we see it now. But, incubating in the depths of dark oceans of those times, life existed in the form of tiny anaerobes, to whom this scorching heat and toxic conditions were pleasant to thrive. Among them, lived one species, the cyanobacteria, that could produce as much as 16 times the energy produced by its counterparts, with their special power of photosynthesis, which in turn led to an explosion in their population. Further, this process had oxygen as a byproduct which was lethal to other lifeforms of that time. Spike in oxygen levels and cooling down of planet due to receding methane further choked the existing lifeforms, and thus happened what came to be known as the great oxygenation catastrophe. Since then, the equilibrium of life has quasi-staticaly kept shifting from one phase to another. Mass extinction, as we call it, has struck our planet a number of times and its was more or less always accompanied by the event of one species outnumbering the rest due to some favorable breeding conditions triggered by the changing face of earth. What we often call in the Darwinian language as "the theory of natural selection".Today we stand, millions of generations ahead of those microbial creatures to witness the planet earth in an entirely different incarnation, and life, as an entirely different concept.
The basic instinct of the nature is to increase its entropy, and we observe this phenomenon all around. The continuously resolving jigsaw of tectonic plates, or the wrath of stormy oceans and fiery volcanoes has always put organisms to the survival tests. The species which mold best into the nature’s shape shifting casting emerge as surviving warriors and validate Darwin’s theory leading their way into a new glossary of species that the nature selects. Man, unlike other species, was blessed with an entirely different kind of superpower i.e reason and intelligence. It gave us an obvious responsibility to conserve the environment, in a way, in which all the life forms could thrive. Ironically, forget the concern for others, the intellect has brewed in us, a strong sense of mine and thine, which in turn has contested, an intra-specie race to wield more power at the expense of the exploitation of everything that comes in our way. Blind folded by our own intellect and driven by the frenzy of greed, we fail to see that it's the nature, not man who gets to select its survivor. No doubt that the equilibrium of life is set to tip scales one day but, the direction in which our brain is running, the comfort that our bodies are seeking and the exponential rate at which we are multiplying is just bringing that phenomenon closer. It might be possible that our excessive meddling into the simple flow of life may leave the planet in such a chaos that nature might fail to select the survivor of the next catastrophe.
Planetous, brings all those minds and souls together who believe that once born, it’s the right of every organism living on this earth to share the blessings of nature equally. Nobody’s share of air, water or any other part of ecosystem should get snatched away in somebody else’s greed for more luxury and comfort. Every species, and individuals of same species should have an equal chance to participate in the Darwinian race for survival. Or better we should hold each other's hands to make sure that no form of life is left behind. Keep reading and contributing for a better society.