A problem serious in nature surely must be solved in time; otherwise, it will become too late to make amends as the problem gradually starts to grow its roots deeper and deeper.
Hope you readers have probably heard of this information about a water-pot with water and a frog inside when heated causes a threat to the frog due to which its body starts to adapt to the rising temperature. Due to the heat, the frog must now struggle to maintain its body temperature in accordance with the temperature around; but it’s not much of a problem for the frog actually. The problem lies in the wrong approach of the frog towards the situation. If the frog can determine the situation and decide to leap out, the problem is solved; if it continues to stay or seems to be attributed with ignorance or sloth, the problem grows even more severe and dangerous. You see, the more seconds the frog stays within that slowly heating water-pot, the more energy it needs to expend in order to adapt to its environment; meaning after a certain time it will become unable to survive there due to the heat’s pressure and will have lost the energy to even leap out due to its lost energy. So the earlier it jumps out, the better it is to the frog. However, most of such frogs die due to their lack of awareness of the slowly increasing temperature. As they are completely unaware of the almost unnoticeable and slow temperature increase, they meet their demise.
What I’m trying to point out is that we are better than the frogs as we can perceive, find out, know, share and increase the awareness by spreading the knowledge of what’s good for us and our surrounding and what’s not; so every one of us can act out for solving the problem yet dormant, but already serious. The point I’m focusing on is the air we breathe, the water we drink, the accessories and things we use and the junk we dispose of. I’m talking about what we have made our atmosphere and what we’re still doing to desecrate it furthermore to the point of the destruction of our only home, the Earth and its bosom or lap that we dwell on.
You know there used to be a lot of trees around (in the cities too, especially in our country) to maintain the oxygen for fresh air and even beside the roads, there were more of them. Sadly, now there are negligible trees and more dust and smoke swirling around causing a dozen of problems for the pedestrians as well as other people present at the spot and near. Especially, industrialization has made a major impact in our surrounding for approximately one or a couple of centuries in the world context. It has rapidly spread from western countries to countries all around the globe. Along with industrialization, two things are responsible for our defiled environment; one, the production of plastic and rubber-based products, the production of technologies: fuel empowered machines and vehicles, CFC emitting accessories such as Refrigerators and Air Conditioners, and many more; and the other, fast decline of natural resources for lumber, metals and other needed things like sand and rocks. Certainly, there is a rule to plant five trees for any authorized cutting of a tree in the forest, but rare people follow those rules. Another unfortunate action of people such as burning plastics, sponges and rubbers worsens things even more. Some are unaware and some stay simply ignorant to bother applying what they already know. Burning tons of plastic stuff regularly, burning tires for protests, using very old or dysfunctional vehicles, doing nuclear and chemical experiments/attacks and there is a long list if we go on; but all such actions help emit more and more greenhouse or other poisonous gases like Methane, Carbon Mono-Oxide, CFCs and some more; also making the Ozone thinner, the surface temperature higher and our hearts and lungs weaker. Just imagine just how much the latter generation would have to struggle to become healthy.
I recall the times in Kathmandu valley when we sometimes ate ‘‘Dhindo’’ and even after some time it would still remain soft, but now you can’t leave it for more than ten minutes or it will have become too dry and hard to eat. It agitates me how much the temperature has risen in over a decade, and not to mention all the foul air trapped inside the valley (people living in the valley have it worse). It is already past our time to decide what we want; Global Warming or Global Greening.
So the already defiled air, defiled rivers and unavailable clean water make it even more essential to help save our dwelling place, spread awareness of it and take an initiative, for ourselves. The fuel engine motor-vehicles need to be replaced with electric ones or else the fuel traffic will keep on increasing, also increasing the pressure on us. Trees must be planted everywhere (at the edges of roads too). New technology ACs and refrigerators which don’t emit CFCs need to replace the old ones. We can separate degradable wastage to make and provide compost manure for agricultural farms. And rather than burning plastic off, we can promote plastic handicrafts or establish plastic collection centers for plastic waste management.
Therefore, we seriously need to think this through and act for it with a collective or any small individual effort; in whatever ways we can.
-Sachét
(Published in 'The Greatway Magazine' around 2018)
