This coming June 5th-World Environment Day, the world will see a lot of ‘pollution creating’ humans and creatures posting quotes like “We need to start protecting our Earth!“.

Well, first of all, good morning to everyone who has finally realized that our Earth, mother nature needs to be protected. We have taken the phrase ‘better late than never‘ pretty seriously.

Anyway, I am writing this article exactly two days before World Environment Day so that people have a chance to stop redefining Hypocrisy. There are people who genuinely work for nature without cameras, facebook posts and insta stories. Loving or even acknowledging mother nature on just days like Earth Day and Environment Day will not take you to places. Also, there are people, who might be waiting at the signal throwing out their plastic or spitting out on the road while sending some emotional World Environment Day quotes to 256 people at a time on WhatsApp.

Now coming to what is happening to our planet because of our carelessness. We are being continuously warned about the increased usage of plastic and the damage it is causing. There are posts by travelers and numerous pages on Instagram, Facebook showing the changes happening to our Earth, be it beaches or coral reefs or even mountains. Humans have failed Mother Nature at so many levels.

According to a report of March 2019, the United Nations has warned people to either take strict actions to save our home, our Earth or see millions of premature deaths by mid-century.

The Guardian, in its report, stated the news of 8m tonnes of plastic being dumped into the ocean annually, taken from the United Nations report.

All the plastic dumped settles in the ocean, choking aquatic animals and killing them. The same report also gave some data.

There are approximately 450 Seabins in 26 countries across the world. On average, they collect around 4kg of marine litter a day, or say 1.4 tonnes a year, according to Ceglinski.

There are millions of people out there who invest their time in protecting Mother Nature.

India on the other hand, being the country with the second highest population, also accounts for creating pollution at a larger-scale.

Now that the time to sit and watch is over, the National Green Tribunal is bringing in amendments to make changes to the conditions. Severe actions are being taken by the National Green Tribunal for not abiding by the rules.

For instance, according to the latest report of Firstpost (May 2019), the National Green Tribunal has fined ₹25 lakhs on the governments of Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal for the inaction over the continuous increase of pollutants in river Ganga.

According to DownToEarth, the National Green Tribunal has directed the Airport Authority of India and the Indira Gandhi International Airport Limited to submit a report within a month on mitigating measures to reduce noise pollution around the airport.

There are numerous issues that need to be addressed when it comes to protecting our Earth.

We are so busy humanizing Nature that we have forgotten the fact the ‘Nature doesn’t belong to us, but we belong to Nature’.

Here are some things that you can do from your side, to, later on, tell your children some heroic stories about you having a role in trying to save Nature.

– Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. I know this is what we have been taught in schools, but the time to learn has passed and now is the time to take some action.

– Participate. Anywhere you get a chance to clean, please take part proudly.

– Encourage. Try to spread the message and encourage, motivate and help people do their bit in protecting nature.

– Plant a tree. Why not make a resolution of planting n number of trees on your special day. Make Mother Nature feel special too, okay?

Unlike others, I wouldn’t be posting any quote here. In conclusion, all I would say is, let this beautiful Earth exist for the coming generations. You wouldn’t want them to ‘not’ believe you when you talk about the Northern Lights or the Sea of Stars or the Light Pillars. They are going to find it a part of fairytales and not believe us. We definitely don’t want that.

Let us pledge to work together towards pollution-free, clean places, cities, states, countries and the world.

-Prathiusha Podiuval

 

Sources:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/mar/22/plastic-pollution-can-the-ocean-really-be-cleaned-up

https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/environment/daily-court-digest-major-environment-orders-may-23-2019–64720

https://www.firstpost.com/india/national-green-tribunal-raps-bihar-jharkhand-wb-govts-for-inaction-over-damage-to-ganga-slaps-penalty-of-rs-25-lakh-6735451.html