King Erysichthon was a character in Greek mythology who was cursed by Demeter, the goddess of agriculture, for felling trees in her sacred grove. The curse was of insatiable hunger, and it eventually killed Erysichthon when he ate himself. Self-cannibalism, as it is often found in the animal world, seems to have afflicted the human race as well. Even amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the sapiens have engaged in a horrible war between Ukraine and Russia. As if it was not enough that more than 6 million people died due to COVID-19 across the globe, the Russia-Ukraine war has already killed 900 civilians, of which 115 are children, and several thousand have been injured.
Amid competing propagandas and the media wars between NATO and the Russia-China axis, people are praying that the hostilities stop. Wars destroy not just humanity but also the planet.
During the Vietnam war, the US military used ‘Agent orange’, a herbicide mix to defoliate forests, for exposing enemies. The chemical caused unprecedented health and ecological hazards. Oil fields were burnt during the Kuwait war, and huge forest fires occurred during Russia’s invasion of Georgia in 2008.