This short, profound statement exposes the human indifference that pushes the world to the brink today. We debated this crisis heatedly for years, but failed to read the writing on the wall.
“A mango tree saved me,” said a labourer who survived the devastating flash floods in Nepal that claimed several lives and left many missing.
More than 30 years ago, we debated the consequences of blatant deforestation in school assemblies and global forums. The Bible says God’s judgement comes like a thief in the night, sudden and unexpected (1 Thessalonians 5:2-3). In Punjab, we have watched our green cover shrink as we cut old groves for colonies and roads, then lament the 47-degree summers and dry wells in June.
we count numbers – the dead, the lost and the damaged While affected communities await relief. And now it unfolds before our eyes. We are birthing a world of utter disaster, and the ‘labour pains’ are evident – violent earthquakes shake the world, disastrous floods inundate it, and wildfires and droughts rage elsewhere. Yet we ignore the message nature sends us. And we knew this would come. Yet we chose to ignore it. We turned global warming, rising air pollution, a depleting water table and the hole in the ozone layer into topics for erudite debates and dinner-table conversations. But we did nothing to sustain the very environment that sustains us. We failed, and shamefully so. We woke up only after the damage was done. Of late, tree plantation drives have increased in number, but waking up long after daybreak does not mean the morning has just dawned. Many people still treat these disasters as mere headlines to scroll past until adversity hits them directly. And these drives often chase media attention and public acclaim more than ecological healing. We ourselves gave the green signal to these calamities through our slumber. Nature now flashes a green signal of its own – a final warning to stop, to act and to restore. A mango tree that someone planted saved one man. What if it had never existed? The tragedy is that we know the science and we know the solution. We paved the earth that was meant to soak the rain, and now we wonder why the rainwater has nowhere to go. We uprooted the trees that held the soil, and now we call the landslide a natural disaster. What we need now is not another symbolic plantation drive for photographs. A sapling planted without a plan to water and protect it is not afforestation; it is greenwashing. The mango tree that saved the labourer was not planted last week for an event. Someone planted it years ago and tended it, never knowing whose life it would one day save. That is the stewardship Genesis calls us to – to dress and to keep the garden.
The scriptures predicted it: “and great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven” (Luke 21:11). We must plant more today, so they can save many more tomorrow. If we return to that calling today, our trees can still save many more tomorrow. Trees that we plant today are tomorrow’s hope and sustenance. [email protected]
