Only One Earth: Happy World Environment day!

The word Environment and its significance of the years has evolved, it is associated with various negative repercussions such as climate change, loss of trees, pollution. Somehow, we have failed to respect the laws of nature. Anthropogenic activities have led to certain atrocities on nature that can’t ever be undone. However, in the past few months we have seen a paradigm shift in how we perceive things around us. It took a global pandemic to demonstrate to us the interdependence of humans and webs of life in which they exist. Some say that the nature is healing itself but we must understand that Nature is sending us a message that we must act now more than ever. 

Health emergencies of today like coronavirus is also linked to the mistreatment of the natural wold. When we look at the case of food production, nearly 30% of food produced is wasted globally and food waste contributes to 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Industries such as fashion produces 10% of emissions globally, 85% of textiles are thrown away, which further create problems of solid water management at landfills. An interesting fact is that it takes 7500 litres of water to create a single pair of jeans. Micro plastics cause 31% of plastic pollution in oceans. Here economic activities of food and fashion industries provide limitless economic growth but the industrialised world shows no respect to the plant and animal habitat. 

You may say that these industries should cease to exist if they are so dangerous to our planet. But we can’t ignore the fact that these industries support millions of jobs. The only solution is that we coexist with all that is bad and minimise its dire effects. To coexist in such a form, we need sustainability. For example, Kitakyushu city was one of the heavy industry cities of Japan. With chemicals being pumped in water bodies heavily, the marine life along with human health of the city started to deteriorate. Automobile pollution added to the already existing issues of the city. However, the town had a drastic switch and it emerged as the first ‘Eco town’ of Japan. Eco Town Program is  a Zero Emission Concept which aims to shift all the wastes generated from an industry sector to utilise as material in other industry sector, aiming at removing any types of wastes as a basis for establishing an environmentally harmonising socio-economy in local community. This Kitakyushu model of sustainability has become a tremendous asset to help other nations to manage their industry waste. [1] Japan and the United Nations Environment Programme have also joined hands to counter issues of marine plastic litter in Southeast Asia and India. China as an effort to improve its sustainability in rural areas has provided to farmers through programs that improves their livelihood by providing monetary support to implement sustainability measures on their land. Other reasons to pursue sustainability programs is stop erosion and dust storms in Yangtze and Yellow river regions. The result has been that forest cover has increased in these regions by 20% in 2 decades and so has the agricultural productivity. [2]

While these examples are dependent on large scale execution of communities, the common man can do their bit for earth in small ways. When it comes to nature, no action is small. Some ways you can care about the nature, blending them in your daily life are as follows:

>> Using cloth bags to shop rather than plastic bags that you might throw after a few uses.

>> Watering the old withering plants and trees in your localities. 

>> Sustainable buying: buying of food products, vegetables and fruits in a limited manner as needed and not overbuy things so that they ultimately go waste.

>> If you do manage to get extra leftover food, might as well share them with stray animals like dogs and birds.

>> SEGREGATING WASTE- a major issue in countries like India, you cannot assess what damage would it make to mix wet and dry waste however it leads to a large scale problem when comes to solid waste management.

>> Not throwing away single use plastics such as chips packets on streets, not only is this a basic etiquette so that we humans are saved from atrocious sites of decaying waste on the road, but also to prevent it from stray animals like cows that my consume them. 

These are some of the easiest things to do and there are countless more ways where you don’t even need to move an extra muscle to achieve these.  We can use our own innovative capacities to help earth survive and all species to coexist. Sustainability is no longer about less harm, it’s about doing better. Consume resources only to the point you need them and let other species use them equally. Earth is our only home. Last but not the least, Happy World Environment Day!

Source:

[1] https://www.unenvironment.org/news-and-stories/story/model-city-japan-helping-asian-cities-go-green

[2] https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/07/what-we-can-learn-from-china-s-fight-against-environmental-ruin

PHOTO COURTESY: https://greenearthappeal.org/world-environment-day/