Hello, readers, I hope that you’re all healthy and I pray for your health. It is much needed as we continue to live in a toxic and constantly deteriorating environment. It was widely considered that the quarantine lockdown amid the pandemic would give mother nature the time she requires to heal herself of the terrible damage we have inflicted on her over the years.
But is this really the truth? Today, we have numerous difficulties in the face of humanity. Issues like air pollution, climate change deforestation, forest fires, depletion of biodiversity and natural resources and so many more. We need to understand that all these issues are related to each other and to ourselves. Mother nature provides enough to fulfil everybody’s needs but not for any one’s greed. We need to understand that if we don’t start conserving environment today, our future generations will have a barren and depleted planet to call their home. Conventions like the Rio summit of 1992 and concepts like sustainable development need to be brought in the practice.
According to the World Health Organisation’s data, poor air quality has caused premature deaths of an estimated 4.2 million people in 2016. 90% of these deaths occur in the second and third world countries. Air pollution increases the rate of cancer and other fatal diseases like asthma and heart disease.
Scientists attributed that global world trend observed since the mid 20th century to the human expansion of greenhouse emission shows that the temperature has been constantly increasing with a constant annual increase in the rate of expansion.
Basically, Earth will continue to get hotter. Now warmer conditions will probably lead to more evaporation and precipitation in an overall scenario but regions individually may vary.
According to a NASA report, the industrial activities of modern civilization have raised the atmospheric carbon dioxide levels from 280 parts per million to 414 parts per million in the last 150 years.
Hot and dry conditions created by the overall increase in the temperature of the planet have also resulted in recent wildfires and forest fires such as the California wildfire and the Australian forest fires. These forest fires have resulted in the destruction of plant and animal species. Similarly, deforestation for agriculture and settlement of civilization has resulted in depletion of biodiversity.
The more we continue to expand our population the more destruction of biodiversity and natural resources will happen in order to fulfil the needs of the population.
Overpopulation or population overshoot is a state in which there are too many people for the environment to sustain through its natural resources. Overpopulation continues and so does the depletion of natural resources at an increased rate which may lead to complete depletion in a few decades.
Natural resources such as oil coal and other fossil fuels take millions of years to form under immense heat and pressure. They deplete a lot faster than they can be restored by mother nature.
Resources such as oil have already been fought over and the future seems much darker as basic resources like water seem to be the cause for future wars.
The question again remains: What can we do about it?
We can conclude after reading that whatever the world’s current environmental scenario maybe, it is somehow related to us
So, we need to understand and practice the concept of sustainable development, afforestation, and others search for eco-friendly practices. We can start by planting a tree on a birthday, we can even contribute to the cause by carpooling on the way to our offices. We can contribute by using bicycles for short distances. If all this is too much, then at least, we can stop using plastic bags and other non-environment-friendly materials. So much can be done by us as individuals kyunki ek ek karne see kya farq padta hai? Magar ek ek karne see zaroor padta hai, aur farq sirf ek ka hi hai (One person goes a long way in making change happen)
Jai Hind.