Nepal faced the rage of 32,645 large wildfires during the last decade. The data of the Forest Fire Detection and Monitoring System in Nepal shows that in the first five months of 2024, the incidence of wildfires crossed the 5,000 mark, way above the past yearly average. The economic, social and environmental costs in the form of losses of human and domesticated animal lives, flora and fauna, disruption to the ecosystem and air pollution, among others, from both wild and other types of fires are colossal.

The global scenario is not much different: The annual average number of wildfires is about a million; in 2024 alone, more than a quarter of a million large-scale fire incidents have occurred across six continents. Repeated wildfires in uncontrollable scale and ferocity like in California, Australia, Amazonian forests and Indonesia in recent years have only exposed the absolute incapacity of human ingenuity and so-called scientific advancement to contain and control these disasters. About a million hectares of forest cover per week are destroyed and 604 million tons of carbon dioxide are released globally due to wildfires. The crisis is threatening human civilisation as personified in the proverbial “spreading like wildfire”, uncontained.

Failing science

Increased number of forest and other fire incidents, in overused generality, are attributed to climate change and its ensuing global warming. However, regarding specifics, scientists and researchers have miserably failed to predict the correlated possibility of fire incidents with rising earth surface and atmosphere temperatures. They seem so far more preoccupied with guesswork on glacial melt, sea level rise, desertification of land, etc. Recent actual occurrences of wildfire incidents and their intensity have exceeded far beyond any prediction by the entire scientific community.

Even rich and developed countries that boast of their institutionalised and efficient disaster preparedness mechanism appear equally vulnerable in the face of wildfire. Other forms of after-effects of climate change, like unseasonal weather variation, impact on crops and sea level rise, may occur gradually. But the wildfires are instantly making the earth uninhabitable, with increased density of carbon dioxide and smoke in the air, raising cities and settlements to the ground and destroying oxygen-generating vegetation.

To take a rather cynical view, the failure of rich and influential countries to prevent, control and manage fire-related disasters might compel them to walk the talk on preventing the adverse impacts of climate change. Otherwise, instead of initiating meaningful action, the First World has only lectured developing nations on their responsibility and the importance of containing carbon emissions and global warming. The largest polluting countries have no plans to compromise their luxuries of travelling by personal cars, consuming fossil-fuel-generated electricity, switching off their air conditioners and refrigerators, reducing air travel and curtailing the ship-cargo-supported international trade. Replacement of energy sources for these fossil fuel intensive livelihood trends is not yet on the horizon. There is no sincere willingness to change the behaviour of the governments and citizens to that end.

Irreversible destruction

Despite the convenient stories played out by the optimists about scientific progress, industrialisation, infrastructure development and economic growth, the past two centuries have proven to be the most destructive threat to the earth’s existence. From 1950 to 2022, an estimated 1.5 trillion barrels of oil have been extracted from the earth. The coal and mineral extraction have been equally substantial. At present, globally, the daily average oil extraction is 103 million barrels, according to estimates by the US Energy Information Administration. It is still growing at 4 percent annually.

The euphemism of clean, green or renewable energy is only tokenism or sugar-coated saga. On the one hand, there has not been serious consideration and planning to completely replace petroleum-fueled electricity generation. Not a single moderate-sized economy is contemplating that end, let alone the large ones. The scientific community has not even piloted research to operate long-haul aircraft and ships with renewable energy. Large crafts and shipbuilders have already accepted large commercial delivery orders for the next two decades.

On the other, the scope of hydroelectricity is limited and more prone to uncertainty in the face of rapidly depleting sources like snow. The overhyped scope of clean energy from alternative sources like solar, wind, geothermal, etc., would certainly reduce direct emission of carbon dioxide, but components they use can only be produced by over-extraction of different metals and minerals. Their smelting and processing are beyond imagination without using fossil fuels in direct or indirect forms. The same applies to producing components and batteries needed for “renewable” energy and electric cars. The possible pollution, for example, from the used/disposed batteries, will perhaps be more hazardous as unrecyclable chemical and radioactive waste compared to fossil fuel-induced pollution. A monolithic energy transformation narrative is, therefore, only for political consumption.

Not only in fuel consumption, transportation and production technologies, but all so-called disruptive scientific discoveries have proven more destructive than supportive to humanity and mother earth. The culmination of nuclear technology is impending nuclear warfare among the global superpowers. The aviation industry produces more war planes than passenger aircraft. Weapon and ammunition manufacturing has used more technology than the vaccine and life-saving drug industry. Information technology has created an addictive social media anarchy with a huge psychological toll on the young and future generations. Whether artificial intelligence would prove a better tool to enhance humanity or otherwise is yet to be seen.

An answer to the question of whether the invention of robots, drones or digital human replicas supported the poor, marginalised and deprived lot of humanity in any form is yet hardly affirmative. Equally intriguing is whether the insatiable quest for economic growth of countries and the prosperity of individuals were possible without harming the earth's sustainability.

Even before the crises related to carbon emission, water scarcity and biodiversity loss, wildfires on the overheated earth's surface may soon make the planet uninhabitable to entire species of plants and animals. The helplessness in dealing with it is already evident in the utter shame of scientific and technological advancements.

If human sensitivity and empathy are not restored, science alone is unlikely to reverse this destructive consumerism, which is costing life on planet Earth itself.