Environment and "baba" Paul

Dear Friends,
FIFA world cup is finally over and Spain has emerged as the new world champion of Soccer. While the participating nations, and Shakira hogged the limelight, sharing the arc-lights was another creature affectionately referred to as "Baba Paul" by the Indian Media. What is interesting is that the "Baba Paul" in question in not your run-of-the-mill, saffron wearing Indian astrologer. In fact he is not even human! Rather, it is a member of the Phylum Mollusca of Sub-Kingdom Invertebrata, of Kingdom Animalia. Translated into lingua-franca, "Baba Paul" is an octopus housed in a fish tank in a German Zoo. It belongs to the class Cephalopoda of the Phylum Mollusca. Cephaplopods are so named because their foot is attached to their head (Kephalos-head, Pod-foot). The class includes such animals as squids and cuttlefish besides Octopi which, collectively, form a group of the most highly evolved and intelligent invertebrates on Earth. Of these also, the octopus is one animal which has a surprisingly large and well developed brain for an invertebrate and exhibits complex behaviour (including maternal care) which approaches the mammals in its intricacy. In fact (if the documentaries being shown on Discovery Channel are to be believed) the octopus will be the next dominant  life-form on Earth after we humans are wiped out due a catastrophe of global proportions, like a nuclear war or a comet impact from outer space!
It is amazing to see how the octopus Paul managed to accurately predict the outcome of all the important games played in the soccer world cup, including the final. In doing so, it turned all the laws of probability on their heads and forced the skeptics into a shocked silence. Even though I am not exactly a believer in the soothsaying abilities of Paul, yet I am writing this post for an entirely different reason. And the reason is that what Paul has achieved and demonstrated in this world cup is that the so called 'lowly' life forms on this planet may possess senses and abilities which of which we are completely unaware. While the ability to accurately predict the future is an ability straight out of science fiction novels, we are as yet trying to figure out how birds and fish make accurate migrations over thousands of kilometers without any instruments, how some frogs can remain frozen for decades and then spring back to life upon the return of favorable conditions, why sharks never get cancer and so forth. While we continue to destroy environment with impunity and push species into the black hole of extinction daily, we do not realize that we may be doing so at our own peril. Who knows if a lowly and ugly life form like Caenorhabditis (a worm) may in future provide us the key to an eternal and youthful life?
The year 2010 has been the hottest year in the last decade. The effects of climate change are no longer conjecture. They are now, in fact, a fact of life which we all are beginning to experience and to suffer. The day may not be far off when the Ganges and numerous other rivers of the Indo-Gangetic plain start drying up for want of water from the Himalayan Glaciers which are rapidly receding. Can we even begin to imagine the level of human catastrophe that will be the fallout of the termination of fresh water supply to one of the most densely populated and backward regions of the Earth? What we must realize is that the environment of the Earth is the product of millions of years of evolution and is like an extremely fragile web. Break enough threads and the web will fall away and dissolve into nothingness right before your eyes. The recent show of ESP by "Baba Paul" is only a reminder that we humans need to sit up and start viewing the other seemingly 'unimportant' and 'primitive' life forms on the planet with renewed respect. In fact, I have a suggestion. Why don't we ask "Baba Paul" to predict the outcome of human activities on this planet. Considering that his predictions are way ahead of Nostradamus, the result of such a test should be an eye opener...!