It’s high time we realized that we are on the brink of a major
environmental disaster; signs are already there, but somehow or the other we
have been ignoring them. The seemingly massive problems like climate change and
global warming have really simple solutions. We lack the willingness- both
civil and political. Growth and environment can walk side by side. Though most
of us know the problems and even the solutions, we don’t bother to bring them
into practice. This is because of several reasons like:
1. There is a difference between ‘knowledge’ and ‘awareness’;
knowledge does not always translate into awareness. ‘Awareness’ is the missing
link between ‘knowledge’ and ‘Action’.
2. The consequences are not so immediate to everyone, not so
tangible and not so direct to establish a relationship between the problem and
the cause. People in general (i.e. only a small fraction do) don’t think beyond
their and their children’s welfare. So, they don’t bother to think and
visualize what might happen to their next to next generations, neither do they
realize that their actions lead to large scale problems for a different section
of people.
3. People think their individual actions are too small to make any
significant impact on the environment and their small changes in lifestyle are
too small to solve the problem, which is huge in magnitude!
4. There are short term economic implications (read negative ones
for certain people) of the solutions
The solutions can be manifold; from legal to policies to technical
to living styles; one such small solution is changing our habits to make them
eco-friendly. Small changes in habits and lifestyle by individuals can add up to
significant savings in resources and energy and in turn it will lead to
reduction in production of greenhouse gases. Small habits like switching off
the light-bulb when not in use, using energy- efficient appliances, saving
water in day to day use, taking care of the engine, etc (the list can go on)
can go a long way in making life on earth sustainable.
The beginnings of all the things are small....only small droplets
of water add up to make the ocean... seconds make the hours and the years. Not
always big problems have big solutions; it's the small things that
matter....and our collective actions matter.
However, here lies the difficulty: ‘Changing Habits’, it’s not at
all easy; and then retaining the good habit is even harder. In any case, it has
to start with creating ‘awareness’. One way of doing this is to reminding one
every morning that he/she is expected to do something and the result will be a
better world around him/her.
