Where Survival Becomes Self-Destruction

Congratulations, family planning is no longer about narrating the trajectory of your life, but about gambling your child’s entire future in a world where the odds are already against them.

Dr. Randeep Guleria of AIIMS warns: polluted air “affects lung growth… children who grow up in poor air-quality areas tend to have lower lung capacity.” In practical terms, long-term exposure can wipe out roughly 10–15% of lung function in young children compared to peers in clean air. Already, about 6% of Indian kids have asthma, and each cough or wheeze can become life-threatening when the city is blanketed in PM2.5. The statistics, the doctors, and the researchers all suggest the same thing: “We have created a reality we can no longer escape.”

Personal Connection and Theme:

The theme of environment and climate change served as the perfect dive into diagnosing and researching various situations expected to influence the rise of the present environmental concerns, taking into account my own experiences and conditions.

Exhaustion and fatigue, even from basic activities in recent times, have taken over my entire attention in the aspects of health. These symptoms are no longer just about drinking enough water or eating healthy, but learning to live with these conditions we can no longer avoid.

Search for Causes:

As I delved into the adventure, as I call it, to find cures for this problem of mine, I came across what actually caused it. As a result, one of the main reasons for this growing-with-time type of constant feeling of fatigue and growing respiratory problems all pointed towards the excessive use of air conditioners, and NO, this isn’t some 2-month or 3-month problem. These respiratory diseases seem bearable until they aren’t. They are responsible for the accumulation of various health hazards like migraines, year-long problems regarding the nasal passage and throat.

The Cooling Paradox and Climate Feedback:

To be fair, eliminating air conditioning usage is entirely unfeasible given the impending El Niño cycle, which is projected to reach twice the intensity of the 2023 anomaly. Under these extreme climate conditions, mechanical cooling remains indispensable for mitigating heat-related health risks.

There is a cyclical trap in our modern survival strategy: the widespread use of air conditioners and their chemical refrigerants has become a leading catalyst for the climate anomalies rewriting our weather patterns. This is not a sensationalist “doomsday 2027” headline, but rather the grim reality currently causing emergency sessions in research labs worldwide.
As an international coalition of scientists warned in their joint manifesto, they are “afraid of the uncharted territory” we have entered, screaming that our cooling habits are breaking the planet.
Yet, we conveniently ignore this evidence and remain obliviously unbothered, keeping ourselves occupied with generating AI images of ourselves in stadiums and watching vegetables talk in our leisure time, while ignoring nature’s clear cry for help.

All this time, while we indulge ourselves in distractions, the climate and environment become increasingly helpless, ultimately summoning the gods and goddesses of destruction, whose wand will be unbearable. We are acutely aware of the consequences, the bold headlines screaming about widespread corporate layoffs, diminished career opportunities, and the massive carbon footprint of the technology sector. Despite this, we continue to trade away deep-seated work ethics and human connection for convenience, to the point where we willingly replace human therapists who dedicate lifetimes to mastering empathy with ChatGPT.

Our apartments, these AI centres, throw the climate under the bus for one reason—the insatiable need for cooling. These AI centres require millions of litres of water to cool. This scalding, chemical-laden wastewater is pumped directly into pristine aquatic ecosystems with zero corporate accountability. On our screens, we watch displaced deep-sea creatures wash ashore, dying in the shallows, yet a casual social media share is all it takes for us to purge the horror from our minds. We willfully ignore the reality that we have fallen completely to the mercy of the natural forces we have spent centuries exploiting.

If this systemic apathy doesn’t alarm us, it is hard to fathom what will. Perhaps we will find clarity in the UN’s warnings that global data center energy use will double to 945 terawatt-hours by 2030, consuming as much power as the entire nation of Japan just to sustain our digital distractions. Or perhaps the truth will only sink in when we look at the devastating sight of eighty-three-year-old Kusum and eight-month-old Kavish lying side by side in the same crowded hospital beds, their frail bodies failing under the weight of an unbreathable atmosphere, with a child whose tiny lungs were exhausted from the very moment he was brought into this world.

Psychology behind our behavioral patterns:

However we humans, in the deepest corners of our souls, crave utter destruction and oblivion. When it seems that everything is lost and beyond repair, human consciousness turns to the opposite pole: the farthest and most complete end. There is something thrilling and terrifying about the thought of total and absolute destruction and annihilation of everything that exists, including all particles of matter, as described in many ancient writings and apocalyptic prophecies.

Intrestingly, this end is not an end after all. The most remarkable feature of our consciousness is that it cannot fully grasp the idea of total destruction. Thus, the desire to begin, to create, and to renew emerges from the will to survive.

This shift in human consciousness from the desire for total destruction to the will to survive is what fuels our actions in the face of impending doom. It is this feeling that leads us to take massive steps on a global scale to stop the clock and prevent environmental disasters, pandemics, or other major catastrophes. Thus, the initial fear turns our consciousness to action-oriented modes such as:

• Creating environments and atmospheres in which life will be possible, for example, through the development of the National Clean Air Programme or the world’s joint pledge to achieve net-zero emissions.
• Managing and regulating the development of technology, ensuring safety, and supporting life in the long run.
• Setting up international agreements on AI security and ethics to ensure that technology does not get out of control.
• Preparing the world for pandemics, detecting outbreaks, and having control mechanisms for health security at the level of international coalitions.

Thus, our constant fear of the end is a sign that we care, which, in itself, is already a great beginning.

Closing Quote
“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. — George Bernard Shaw

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