You have just reached home after a hectic day at work and you
find out that there is nothing to eat in the refrigerator. You get your car and
drive to the nearby store to pick up some groceries. You pick up some beef
nuggets and a ready to eat salad to go with it. Your leisure trip to the
neighborhood super market has already damaged the environment.
The car that you
are driving has added to the green house gases through emissions, the beef you
bought was from cattle raised on a farm that contributed in a big way to the
methane in the environment, the salad consists of vegetables that have been
grown with pesticides that have made sure that the land will become barren in a
few years time. And when you sit in front of your television with the food in
front of you and the air conditioner cooling, the electricity that you are using is causing
the global warming though carbon dioxide production. Did you ever think about
all these things? The answer is a big NO.
We all live busy
lives working in big multinational corporations where we are constantly judged
on our performance through appraisal cycles, but what about the appraisal of
the entire human race which is destroying the very thing that gives it
sustenance. Now that we are talking about our performance let me bring out
certain facts.
a)
The
temperature of the Earth has increased by one degree Fahrenheit since 1975.
b)
Polar
ice caps are in danger of melting completely in the next 100 years.
c)
50%
of fish consumed in the world comes from fishing farms. As we have over fished
our oceans.
d)
25%
of all animal species will become extinct in the next 25 years.
The
some of the problems that are affecting us in a big way are:
1)
Dams as Killers:
The
unabated creation of dams in the world, have increased the problems of people
rather than providing us with a sustainable non polluting source of
electricity. We have numerous examples of this from The Three Gorges dam on
Yangtze River in China which was said to be partly responsible for the 2008
Sichuan earthquakes, to the Narmada river dam that will displace millions of people.
In the recent times there have been a lot of landslides and cloud bursts the
effects of which have been intensified due to the excavation done for the dams.
Is this the development that we want? is a very vital question to ask here.
2)
Avoidable accidents:
As
is the wraith of nature wasn’t dangerous enough the human race has its own part
to play in the ecological destruction. Incidents such as oil spills and nuclear
disasters have become periodic events in the world calendar. We can give the
example of the Fujiyama nuclear disaster here which has polluted the ocean
waters around Japan for centuries. These accidents have worst effect on the
psych of people as these are both avoidable and dangerous.
3)
Global Warming:
This
phenomenon is also a human created one which was non-existent before the
industrial revolution. Activities such as power generation, perishable goods
freezing and automobiles contribute to the green house gases in the
environment. These trap the heat in earth’s atmosphere and increase the
planets’ core temperature. Due this polar ice caps are melting. It has been
estimated that in next 100 years the sea level may rise by 2 meters due to
which the kind of damage in the coastal cities like Mumbai will be to the tune
of $200 Billion.
Looking
at all these parameters and the situations linked to them it seems that the
human race is failing in other words deserves a very bad rating in its
appraisal. But there are a few steps we can take to lessen or in a way reverse
the damage that has been caused by our greed for unabated growth. The following are some of the activities that
we can undertake to undo the damage that we have already caused. But these
activities need to be done immediately otherwise a stage might come when
nothing we do will be of any use.
1)
Carbon Recycling:
One
of the major researches that is being conducted these days is how to reduce the
amount of carbon based green house gases in the environment so that global
warming can be controlled. Trees do it naturally through the photosynthesis
process, but it’s a long process. What we need to do is to extract carbon from
the atmosphere in a way that it can be used as fuel. This will reduce our
dependence on the fossil fuels. More over it will create a cycle in which we
can use the fuels, and then recycle the carbon generated back into a fuel. This
way we can control the amount of green house gases in the atmosphere and
protect our planet from climate change.
2)
Spreading Awareness:
Another
important factor is we have to make more and more people aware about the ways
in which they can help in saving our planet from an imminent doom. They have to
be told that they as consumers in a modern age are contributing as much towards
the ecological destruction as the industries and power plants. They as
consumers are one of the biggest stake holders in a disaster recovery plan.
They hold the power of accepting the right kind of products and rejecting the
ones that are not produced using eco friendly production processes. We as
citizen should also hold our respective governments to implementing more
ecologically viable initiatives. The NGOs in a country like India can play a
major role in this process of public awareness towards the environment protection
cause.
Yesterday while walking in a market
near my house I overheard two small children talking. One was telling the other
about not throwing an empty plastic bag on the roadside as the bacteria in the
ground will not be able to absorb it. And I thought to myself that if a small
child of 6-7 years of age can be so considerate towards the environment, we as
adults can do much better.
