Planet Earth in a Volatile State

Bibhuti Narayan Biswal

God created this beautiful, equitable and stable planet Earth in the universe,
To sensitize all humans to the concept of ‘live and let live’ with a purpose,
‘Love all, serve all’ irrespective of caste, creed and colour,
Teach us to ‘feel bliss’ and ‘lessons of mutual co-existence’.

Man is exploring the possibility of human settlements across space,
Disturbing the biosphere and upper atmosphere, which are in a complete mess,
As if the world is to be only controlled by humans,
Paralyzing nature and Mother Earth by waging greedy wars.

Suddenly the trees, the flora, is burned in many parts of the world,
The land of the gods is burned and growing bald,
Forest elephants are homeless and sit on open plains,
Unseasonal rain falls in the dry seasons and crops are washed down stream.

The world is witnessing frequent drought in many parts,
Heavy floods, cloud burst, and gushing rainwater create devastations,
Oceanic low pressure posing a threat to aquatic life forms,
Frequent tsunamis, storms and super cyclones, no longer unusual phenomenon.

The ground collapses, the ice melts in the Arctic,
The water level of oceans suddenly crossing the shores automatic,
The rivers drying up and changing their course,
Man and wild are in search of every drop of water.

The public is careless, disposing of masks and gloves everywhere,
Accumulating tons of plastics and PPE kits, in the environment,
There is growing dangers of plastic pollution in land and ocean,
Another manmade disaster is waiting to happen.

Climate change is felt all around,
Countries fight among themselves without common ground,
Consensus did not happen at COP-26, even after many rounds,
Countries can sustain themselves by breaking barriers down.

The entropy of the earth increases each passing day,
It has destabilized the living ecosystem in many ways.
Human beings should control their anthropogenic activity,
To make entropy in control that suits Humanity.

Who will think for the living world and incoming generations?
If not you, then who will take responsibility for all of us,
Every one of us can protect regardless of our colour, religion, place and caste
Pledge today not to ‘increase nature’s entropy and pollute the earth’,
so as to protect our lovely blue planet.

The Science

Earth is a macroscopic system and the universe is the surroundings. Entropy is good to science and human beings in a limited way. The tendency of change in entropy of planet earth towards more disorder is expanding and making the system irreversible due to human activity in the lithosphere, hydrosphere and atmosphere.

Increasing atmospheric temperature is causing forest fires, the melting of ice caps and glaciers, low pressure in the ocean and sea. Increases in the surface temperature of the earth causes droughts, forest fires, storms, super cyclones, and excess evaporation of water that accumulates as clouds.

Climate change is responsible for the disruption in many natural processes and cycles, such as drying rivers in the hydrological cycle and phase transition causing entropy to increase in the gaseous cycles. To save the planet we must check anthropogenic activity that contributes to the disruption in all spheres.

The Poet

Bibhuti Narayan Biswal started his career as Lecturer in Chemistry before joining the school education system as Principal in the year 2004. Since then, he has been working as a school educational leader. He has to his credit 21 research papers, 9 book chapters, one storybook entitled Bigyan Kathamruta and 163 articles including for popular science. Presently he is working with Reliance Foundation as Academic Coordinator, Reliance Foundation Schools Academic Council (RFSAC) in Navi Mumbai, India.

Next poem: Righteous Things by Arthur J Stewart