World Environment Day: Wish you a sustainable lifestyle

The most explicit definition of Sustainable living that I ever came across is the following:

“Meeting our present needs in a way such that the coming generation would be able to meet their own.”

Our generation is selfishly rushing to achieve their self-defined illusive “Progress”. In the process we are mercilessly converting our farmlands, wetlands, forests and water bodies destroying the natural habitat of our co-dwellers in this earth.

On the 5^th of June 2018, this World Environment Day, I request all to take a moment out to decide where we want to go from here. We need to be wary of finding our environmental report card in the hands of our grandchildren and decide between growth and development.

Growth is all about getting bigger and bigger whereas development is about getting better.

I have no qualms in accepting the fact that it will take a messiah to change the world totally and revert the damages already done. But no one can stop us from participating in whatever small way to be part of the change that we want to see in our environment.

I can assure you that any step, however small that might be would not be insignificant. There are a few things that we all can undertake, no matter where we are or our circumstances.

Firstly we need to plant trees…wherever and whenever possible. Any opportunity should not be missed and it could be in our courtyards, porches, patios, terraces, balconies or even window sills. Create your own flowering nook or a kitchen garden and in doing so please remember to use terracotta pots instead of the plastic one.

Secondly say goodbye to plastics. They are doing immense harm and their outreach is now thousands of feet under the sea. The idea is to start with the disposable, single use products and slowly move to the others.

Finally let “Recycle, Reuse & Reduce” be the mantra of life.

In the end I will leave with a quote from Senegalese Baba Dioum (1968). "In the end we will conserve only what we love, we will love only what we understand, and we will understand only what we are taught.”

The news clipping below may help to understand the gravity of the situation and motivate you. First one is a good news about Tamil Nadu banning plastics and the ones that follows are scary to say the least.