What nature has in its arsenal to wipe out mankind

We foul her (once) blue, crystalline waters (which cover most of the Earth’s surface) with billions of litres of glutinous oil, noxious heavy metals, poisonous chemicals and our own excreta; even animals know better than to drink from the waters they have defecated in – but us? And we blithely dump millions of tons of plastic and non-degradable waste into rivers or seas expecting them to float away forever – out of sight is out of mind.

Oh yes, on land, air and sea we have very much conquered Nature!

Really? As we can see, Nature is striking back. The biggest irony is that she hasn’t even really needed to fully use her original arsenal of WMDs (weapons of mass destruction) as yet. For the weapons we have used against her are now backfiring on us – and we’re not liking that one bit – but not doing very much to stop further carnage. We are slow-roasting our planet, enough to cause raging wildfires to sweep through entire towns and forests (which we have piously ‘protected’).

Nature’s once stable and predictable weather patterns, on which the lives of millions of creatures depended, has been upended and she has responded with apoplectic hurricanes, typhoons, tornadoes and cyclones that can level entire cities in seconds. The seas are raising up gigantic waves that can toss over the mightiest aircraft carrier like a paper boat.

Floods in Odisha (Wikimedia Commons)

Infamous ‘dry seasons’ are getting drier, hotter and longer, withering our food crops, starving entire populations of both humans and animals and causing people in the once temperate West to keel over with heatstroke. We have kind of set off the detonators to her WMDs.

The melting of the ice-caps has caused sea-levels to rise ominously – inexorably drowning coastal communities the world over; soon it is said they will drown Bangladesh, New York, Mumbai, London and many other of our great coastal cities.

And what can we do in response? Send in F-16s, stealth bombers, tanks, artillery and troops when a tornado or hurricane attacks or a forest fire rages? With what weapons can we even stop an avalanche charging down a mountainside with its horde of avenging boulders and rocks, or a river that has suddenly gone rogue, like a bull elephant in musth, or a flood that swallows millions of acres of land which we once took from her? Send over bomb-laden drones and cruise missiles?

Won’t work, will it! From time to time Nature does remind us that ultimately she has the really big guns – even if sometimes we help her pull the triggers. She will merely have to burp, off the coast of California along the San Andreas Fault to have most of the west coast of America tumble headfirst into the Pacific. Yellowstone National Park sits atop the world’s most potent super-volcano: if it blows, it really will be Armageddon and, god forbid, we do anything silly to trigger that off. A slight upwards elbow nudge from the subcontinent to the great Himalayas and she will hiccup and flatten most of the cities and towns in the area.

Nature has her own arsenal of fire and brimstone in the notorious ‘ring of fire’ around the islands of South-East Asia. When one of these volcanoes, like Krakatoa or Toba blow their stacks they can asphyxiate the whole globe.

We all saw what the undersea earthquake off Indonesia did in 2004 as it sent tidal waves racing across the oceans to create havoc in far-away lands. No armada of battleships or submarines could counter that.

And then, of course, Nature has her invisible army of viruses and bacteria. Many of which are aided and abetted by the more evil minded amongst us. Covid-19 stopped us in our tracks. Once set free, these viruses mutate into even more deadly versions as we flap around frantically trying to counter them.

Ah – but we still have the ultimate weapon – the H-bomb! Yes, that might wipe us out too but it will also put paid to Nature. Not quite. Cockroaches and other unspeakable creatures will crawl out of the rubble and joyously greet a brave new world.