Once returning home from my morning constitutional, an elongated piece of brown dirt pirouetting in mid-air arrested my attention and feet. It was a cocoon hanging from a glistening silken thread attached to the limb of a rain-tree struggling to find its majesty.

The tiny being wriggling so vigorously in its titanic effort to scale up to the branch won my admiration. That image insinuated itself into the folds of the mind, launching guerrilla attacks of random thought at odd hours of the day or night. And so assumed a larger significance than a madly spinning piece of dirt. Life's metaphor.

If the double helix of the DNA, which sculpted me, had received a nudge or two, I could have been that potential caterpillar intent on expressing itself in such a hugely complex way for such minute a creature. And why not? The same energy powering that potential butterfly also has the rest of creation for its playground.

Quadrillions of these winged jewels together with cousin moth toil unceasingly and, unknowingly for themselves and for the benefit of nature's other offspring which return the favour in various vital ways. They are blessed in that their life is all neatly laid out.

In contrast, humans stick out like destructive sore thumbs; shot through by the angst of the past and gnawing anxiety about the future. Driven by the demands of an insatiable ego, they war on nature and turn on each other with growing manic intensity.

From birth, senses are saturated with the need for instant gratification, bombarded by advertisements from every possible angle to spend, spend and spend. Snouts to the trough, world without end, so to speak. Captain Capitalism in amok mode powered by greed.

That disease is usually marked by uncaring abuse of the environment, eyes focused solely on the profit margin. One shocking example was the rape of Perak's Temenggor Forest Reserve's rich and priceless ecosystem through unbridled logging. And there are numerous other similar reported cases.

Messing around with nature

There's always a price to pay for messing around with nature. A brutal reminder was the Dec 26 tsunami when with a flick of her eyebrows, she took more than 200,000 lives, leaving behind destruction on an unprecedented scale.

Reportedly the planet was still ringing like bell months after the Richter 9 magnitude earthquake, the most powerful in history and which triggered the tsunami. In areas where mangrove swamps and corals were flourishing the effect was minimal.

Now the rush is on to plant more mangrove trees where they were decimated which includes around 1,600 kilometres of the country's coastline where reportedly 30 percent of beaches have suffered various degrees of erosion over the years. The damage has been blamed on land reclamation, rampant destruction of mangrove swamps as well as the shifting of tides and wind.

Some months back, I had the occasion to ride through Dengkil which I last visited while on a reporting assignment sometime in 1969 when it was heavily wooded. I expected changes this time around but the vastness of it stunned me.

On the right, development stretched to the horizon. On the left, heavy machinery of various sorts were busy levelling and filling land. A little later and, for about three minutes, I was delighted by the sight of a long line of slender white barked mangrove swamp trees in thick stands, their crowns of green nodding in the breeze.

I had not set eyes on such trees in ages. I could sense resilience in the suppleness and the grace of their gentle dance. Belying their fragile look, these children of nature together with their collaborators the coral reefs broke the might of the gigantic tsunami waves in those nations that respected the environment.

So many months past since those brief moments, the memory still lives in my mind. I've thought about them often, wondering if they're still there. If not, I'd mourn the loss. But the grief would be deeper and more widespread for we've invested heavily in future misery.

Consider this: Thai seismologist Dr Smith Dharmasaroja has warned that Malaysia and Singapore are in danger of being hit by tsunamis as the epicentres of the earthquakes had been moving northwards to the Andaman and Nicobar islands since the unprecedented temblor on Boxing Day.

This means Indonesia's Sumatra island would no longer provide the protective buffer as it did last year. South of Kedah and Penang suffered the most when the destructive force of the Tsunami hit our shores for the first time.

Dharmasaroja claimed, based on historical data, big earthquakes and tsunamis occur every 50, 80 or 100 years. When that day arrives imagine the monster waves charging down the coast of Kedah squeezing through the funnel of Penang's north channel with explosive effect.

Who can ever forgot the overwhelming sight of the Tsunami attack video on Thailand's Phuket holiday resort with waves reaching the height of coconut trees, roiling and rolling like some savage beast in manic anger. And that was almost from an open sea.

Through a funnel, the tsunami could be devastating, spreading inland for miles on both sides of the channel sweeping right through to Singapore. The destruction wrought could be on a mind blowing scale. Especially when factoring in the melting of the arctic ice-cap and the resultant rise in sea levels, already threatening the existence of island nations.

Picture the horror of Penang island being reduced to only the peak of Bukit Bendahara and Singapore with only the tips of her skyscrapers peeping out from the sea. And the Klang river flowing backwards. Not to mention the cost in lost lives and economic disaster.

Ask the dinosaurs

Of course an early warning system would be of immense help to save lives. However, nothing can beat the one installed by nature painstakingly over millions of years. She has repeatedly expressed her displeasure in violent fashion at human beings continued defiance of her laws countless times.

It won't matter to her a damn whether we as a species survive or disappear for something is always cooking in her oven. Here today and gone tomorrow in geological time. Ask the dinosaurs.

Here in Malaysia what have we done so far about preparing for the inevitable aside from the warning system? Has anybody sat down and calculated the approximate cost involved not only rescue operations, and the logistics of feeding and housing evacuees but also how to meet such expenses. And how is the aftermath to be handled? I have my doubts.

Or it's being kept a close kept secret. Takpe lah (never mind), 50 years is a long time. The early warning had been sounded and it will arrive. My bet is the survivors of that great tragedy will spit on our graves, if they can find them, in helpless rage for our utter and unforgivable irresponsibility.

If that caterpillar had seen me, I would have appeared a giant. Extrapolating from that planet earth is a near invisible whirling dot in the universe. Which makes all of mankind's achievements throughout history not even pus-filled minuscule pimples in the posterior of the aforesaid universe.

Whenever I walk past any tree of any height, I keep a sharp eye out for another piece of dancing brown dirt. Why? So I can say hello to my kin. It's been a forlorn hope so far.