How long do we advance?

Sometimes I begin to think how long do we progress at the present speed? Though the evolution is taking place since time immemorial, the pace of the progress probably doubled or trebled or even in multifolds only after the second world war. The invention of motor vehicle, specially the use of fossil fuels in the motor vehicles, has largely contributed to the fast pace of progress and advancement in science and technology. What could have probably taken a few million years to develop has taken only a couple of years now. Look at the development of electronics and communication. We never dreamt in our childhood that one day we would move with the mobile phones in our pocket. What an amount of information is available to us today? What an amount of luxury is available at our disposal?

But how long do we advance like this? At what cost are we enjoying all these benefits of so called culture? "Nothing comes out of nothing", said Shakespeare in King Lear. The laws of physics also believe in this principle. Something else must be at loss when we have gained. It is obviously the mother nature at whose cost we are developing. Many species of the animals, birds, aquatic life have become extinct. A large portion of forest has disappeared from the face of the earth. A great deal of fossil fuel has evaporated. Man has emerged as an unconquerable king. All this has changed in a span of just fifty years or so. Fifty years is nothing when compared to the life of the earth. If the nature minds it takes just a few seconds to throw us back to the stone age. How does this threat come to us? Will that be through our own creation or will it come in the form of natural calamities?

If at all it comes through our own creation, might be it may come in the form of another war or nuclear holocaust. The greater possibility, according to me, is the exhaustion of fossil fuel. Once the deposits exhaust, there is no other substitute to fill that vaccuum immediately. Eventhough we are searching for other forms of energy, we may not find an immediate success. The development shall suffer or take a step back by the time we find an alternative. There are already strong signs of this possibility. The day may not be too far. At the most it may be just a decade or another five years away now.