My Earth; My Responsibility

Earth is a beautiful living planet of the Universe as the common habitat of more than 7 billion human population & millions of species of biodiversity. Our Earth provides us with food, shelter & with most of our requirements.

Despite unavoidable free services provided by earth to humans we are not being able to pay off her kindness to us. Rather we humans are being cruel to our Earth by our selfish activities. Mahatma Gandhi said, “Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s needs, but not every man’s greed.”Every day we produce tons of degradable & non-degradable wastes & throw them anywhere recklessly. Smoke & harmful gases from our homes, vehicles or industries are suffocating her. We are disposing dirty sewages, drainage & even chemicals recklessly although we know that more than 7 billion humans along with all plants & animals in this world rely on water for their lives. If we aren’t concentrated on saving those water resources then in near future water can be as expensive as PETROL or one day people can die due to thirst. Despite huge noise by our jumbo population itself, we use loudspeakers for our entertainment & industries, airplanes or other noisy vehicles for our luxury. We destroy forests for agriculture & settlement. We build huge buildings, roads & factories beyond her carrying capacity. Establishment of nuclear reactors vastly affects environment & human lives.

Harmful gases emitted by ACs, refrigerators , industries & vehicles are depleting ozone layer & increasing our exposure to very harmful UV rays of sun leading us towards various skin diseases, eye cataract & even cancer. Wastes like plastics & other non-degradable wastes like insecticides, pesticides, chemical fertilizers etc. highly degrade soil quality & decrease agricultural products & kills soil microorganisms & decomposers. Water pollution increases risk of water borne diseases like cholera, dysentery etc. and lead & arsenic highly degrade our mental ability & causes extinction of many aquatic animals. Air pollution causes air borne diseases like asthma in humans & animals and disturbs whole metabolism process in plants. Noise pollution causes insomnia & heart diseases in humans. Deforestation is leading to natural calamities like floods, soil erosion etc, temperature increase and changed rainfall distribution, drought, loss of valuable biodiversity, decreased oxygen density etc. The burning issues in the world at present are “Climate Change & Greenhouse Effect”.

Solutions of environmental problems are not impossible to superior creature humans if they are committed. As a youth & global citizen, I too have the responsibilities to my mother earth. My first role towards nature is to reduce my own carbon footprint via eco-friendly activities. Then, I can form a GREEN ORGANIZATION along with some other energetic youths to raise awareness in my peer circle, neighborhood & the community about environment sanitation by changing degradable wastes into compost manure & by 3R principle (reduce, reuse & recycle) of non-degradable wastes. I can create workshops with local people that air pollution can be controlled by replacing household energy sources like coal, firewood etc. by biogas, electricity or solar energy & we can negotiate with factory owners & vehicle owners to use dust & smoke purification systems in industries & vehicles & we can encourage them to use solar-energy based industries & vehicles. We can organize environment sanitation programs & afforestation programs in barren lands. We youths can appeal the government to bring eco-friendly development policies & proper planning of cities. We can organize orientation programs about the climate change, its causes, and effects & mitigation measures in schools & colleges to induce other youths towards conservation of nature. Youths can initiate the concept of “Payment of Ecosystem services (PES)” in the society & emphasize home stay tourism in the villages. As a student of forestry sector, I have the responsibility to aware local people about importance of forests & effects of deforestation along with the new concept of carbon trade via REDD++ programs.

Thus, for the sustainability of our planet, I promise to fulfill my responsibilities towards Mother Nature as a global citizen so as to protect my living planet from deterioration & to handover clean & green planet to our future generations. Maybe our single efforts may seem small but if thousands of youths can unite together towards nature conservation then one day our efforts will be a drastic step to protect our motherland Earth from destruction.

Note: Shared from voicesofyouth.org