This civilization like the previous civilizations of Mahenjodaro, Harappa, Nile, Egypt, Mesopotamia and Greece- to name the few is on the brink of extinction. This is primarily because of the heavy ecological degradation at the cost of unwanted economic development.

Arnold Toynbee who studied the rise and fall of the symptoms of twenty one civilizations had concluded that most of the ancient civilizations disappeared from the globe less because of foreign invasions/hordes and more by reason of the neglect or overexploitation of ecological resources. The present civilization has learned nothing from the chapters of history and is heading towards its doom.

The exploitation of Mother Nature (just to meet our selfish ends) in the name of so called economic development is nothing else but  a  step towards our own extinction from earth or in other words the  collapse of the civilization once again. 
 
This episode is not a new one at all as man’s activities from the very beginning; when life appeared on the earth till date have been continuously directed towards exploitation of nature to meet his greed . It’s high time when the masses get the knowledge about environmental concerns and the powers that be, the world over take active steps to stem ecological deterioration going on in the pursuit of mad race for economic development to meet the greed of ‘the privileged’ section instead of need of the nation as a whole.

Our forest cover is shrinking fast; rivers and sea have been polluted to the level where a person gets poisoned. Air has become unfit for human consumption and noise pollution has reached to an unbearable level.

Advanced nations are more to be blamed for the sorry state of affairs.  Most of the world level Conferences attended by premiers and presidents of different nations have not been able to cut much ice. Their suggestions have either remained more or less on the paper or have been shamelessly vetoed against the common consensus of the nations by the countries which have been polluting the world the most. For instance, United States of America vetoed against the ‘Polluter must Pay Principle’ conceived and resolved by majority of the countries at Rio- De- Janeiro International Conference held in Brazil. Here, the warnings given by the noted environmentalist like Mr. Sunder Lal Bahuguna, Ms. Medha Patekar, G.S. Pirta, Bhagat Puran Singh and his successor Dr. Inderjit Kaur besides others should be taken seriously. Sunder Lal Bahuguna minces no words in stating that the question no more is of striking the balance between economic development and ecological degradation but that of survival or extinction.

President APJ Abdul Kalam sent a strong message to the nation and the world at large in favour of eco protection by directing the concerned to plant trees ten times more than that have been axed to make a helipad for his proposed visit. Writing displayed at Pingalwara, Amritsar reads “More than 10.5 million hectares of green forest land is denuded every year in India alone- if it is not curbed and replaced by afforestation or reforestation, the land of India would become a man-made desert by the year 2010 A.D.

The education has become more of an isolated knowledge in the field of technology, seismology, economy, sociology, pure-sciences and so-on; instead of having a meaningful inter-disciplinary approach. This fact was in the mind of the father of the nation- Mahatma Gandhi when, way back in 1924 he remarked that ecology and economy have common roots that needs to be nursed by proper education. Ecology is permanent economy is the view of international environmentalist Mr. Sunder Lal Bahuguna. Environment Education becoming a part of other disciplines could prove very fruitful. For instance, on its inclusion in the field of civil engineering, the engineer carving a road or a tunnel or making a dam in the hills should not only have the knowledge of his discipline but should also understand its social and environmental cost in the right perspective.

There is a need to address most of these issues and provide knowledge about Environment Education which is the need of the hour.  It needs to be impressed upon the masses and policy makers alike to discard the policy which promulgates that any destruction of natural resources is justified at the cost of so called economic development. Moreover, is to give a multi-disciplinary approach to different disciplines of education.

Development must be environmentally harmonious, economically justified and targeted towards equity coupled with social justice. The world of excessive exploitation of nature leads to an ecological catastrophe of a magnitude which makes the civilization extinct.Hence, there is a need to be environmentally educated; understand the implications of fast economic development and the consequences of quickly depleting natural resources causing ecological imbalance; which may prove fatal for the civilization.Keeping this in view an empirical study was conducted to assess the ecological concerns of budding managers and scholars who have to be guiding force in the field of commerce, economics and business management in the years to come.

*Dr. G.S. Bhalla, Professor, Department of Commerce and Business Management ,Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar 

** Miss Hema Khanna, Research Scholar, Department of Commerce and  Business  Management, Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar