Hell hath no fury...

They say man has evolved over millions of years. From an animal to man. As Darwin would say, it was the survival of the fittest. Over generations, the best of the species survived and passed on their quality genes to their progeny, and so it went on. The weaker ones fell behind in the survival race, and either failed to procreate, or their progeny failed to survive.

Over time, the animal accumulated these best of breed genes. It stood erect. It started to lose a lot of the facialand body hair mass. It learnt to make use of weapons to hunt. It learnt to make garments of what was available to protect itself from adverse conditions. It discovered fire and destroyed its greatest enemy - darkness. It evolved. It became man.

Did this evolution stop? Man, it is believed has not physically changed over the past several six to seven thousand years of recorded history. But there has been a massive evolution of the human mind. The discovery of metals, the creation of the first mechanical devices, the birth of the sciences, the evolution of metaphysics, the inventions and discoveries all around us stand testimony to this fact.

Our evolved minds helped us understand our environment, helped us adapt to our surroundings, helped us harness the hidden resources of nature, helped us develop defences against various challenges. We have elongated our average life spans in a matter of decades. We are now better equipped to protect ourselves from the several corrective forces of nature around us - predators, natural disasters, disease, old age, etc.

As a species, our numbers have exploded on the face of the earth, and along with it, our needs and necessity to harness and suppress the forces of nature further has burgeoned.

How much longer? Not much. Nature cannot be supressed for long. No force can be suppressed forever. It will correct. It will lash back. It will take its toll. Nature will restore its balance.

We fight a losing battle againt the effects of global warming, the ozone hole. We fight a losing battle against the large number of disasters that have struck us of late - The earthquake in India and Pakistan on the morning of October 8th, 2005, the fury of the hurricanes Katrina and Rita in the US in August 2005, the torrential rains that claimed lives in Mumbai in August 2005, being just some of them. What about disease? Viruses jumping species to humans now promise to wipe out millions in the coming years. The scourge of the new generation - HIV, the haemorrhagic viruses like Ebola breaking out the jungles of Africa into our cities, the avian flu virus that spreads from birds to humans, are simply manifestations of the fury of the mother. One who has been for thousands of years been exploited, because our evolved minds told us that there was plenty.

She will hit back. She will correct. Mother nature is alive, and she will claim what is rightfully hers. And when she does, hell will have not seen the fury that will be unleashed on earth.