World Environment Day 2019 - The Need to Wake Up!

Yet another June 5 in our Gregorian calendars. Yet another World Environment Day. You will witness slogans, hashtags and tagging at an all-time high trending on social media channels. Electronic media will be abuzz with flashy, vibrant coloured headlines. News channels will have yet another round of discussion and debates with eminent panelists. Yet again, most of us would eventually resort to our usual daily routines. For some, it would involve commenting on social media while for some others it could even be playing PUBG. And with the cricket world cup noise all around, we really aren’t sure how many ears would really catch attention of the word ‘air pollution’.

In this mini series of three blogs, we share our thoughts to elaborate on our concerns around air pollution and our suggestions to tackle the same.

Air pollution has penetrated our lives to the core. It is not without any reason that air pollution masks are a regular feature on some people’s faces in certain cities. We all know that unsustainable development has led to implicit effects of deforestation, habitat loss for wildlife, and global warming. The necessary evil designed by us – plastic – is eternal not because it stays forever but takes thousands of years to decompose. It covers our food but eats our Earth forever. Then we also have our dependency on fossil fuels and coal to address our everyday energy needs. And we also have our landfills running over-capacity with unsegregated waste spewing methane in our air.

All these factors have very frequently been discussed for an umpteen number of times before by various media. But a stringent action has always lacked. Delhi, for example, chokes every winter season and is almost strangulated during Diwali week. Did that happen 20 or even 10 years ago? But it is happening now! Our country’s younger generation is breathing a highly toxic air. We require strong and powerful actions at the grass-root level.

As responsible citizens of our country it is our duty to do our bit for our environment; we can’t simply pass the responsibility to governments. Every great nation on this planet has both the government and citizens work in tandem towards a goal that has a societal good at its fore. So, if we compare some of the developed or better countries in terms of their cleanliness or pure air, we must realize that even their citizens have done their bit and we need to emulate the same.

We can begin at home by segregating our wet and dry waste. By not littering and being concerned about our perishable resources and following tips in this blog, we will leave something for future generations. Besides, you can always work with We Mean To Clean to do your bit towards the environment. 

We urge and request the readers of this article to assess and realise the graveyard that is being dug up and leave it for our families to cover up. We require tree shade to walk in the summer, to park the car, play with our kids and to relax. And if we want our upcoming generations to also enjoy those natural privileges, then it is our responsibility to act now and bring about a real change before it’s too late.

Always remember, ‘We Do Not Inherit the Earth from Our Ancestors; We Borrow It from Our Children.’