Clean up your Act

“To start to obey certain laws or generally accepted standards of behaviour”, read the statement again and hundreds of question pop up. The fact is laws and standards all vary from region to region. These unwritten rules are written based on the socio-economic status and the geographical position of a location. Yet there deep down inside us, all believe that there must be a common behaviour that everyone on this planet must follow.  The generally accepted standard of behaviour is our attitude towards our home. Home not in the structure that offers a roof over your head; Home as in this entire planet.

Since the past two billion years life has existed on this planet, for the first one billion years single celled creatures dominated the scene. Evolution kicked into high gear for some reasons that are still debated about and we have millions of species. There has always been a balance all this while between what nature offers and what the inhabitants took and offered back. For example, Trees absorbed carbon dioxide from air and gave back oxygen. Animals used oxygen and consumed the fruits and flowers of the trees helping in pollination and disbursal of seeds. The animal body eventually dies and it returns nutrients back to the soil for the trees to grow. In fact all the oxygen we breathe on Earth (21%) is from the trees and single celled algae in the oceans. It once so happened that the entire atmosphere was so oxygen rich that the scales tipped and life found it harder to evolve. Due to some natural process billions of hectares of trees got buried under and they stopped producing excessive oxygen and the carbon in the trees got put away for good. Equilibrium was maintained. It was never supposed to make a come back by the laws of nature; until humans has anything to do with it. Till then none of the life forms were intelligent enough to take more and they always took just what they needed.

The last five hundred years have made a monumental impact on this balance. The human species gained more intelligence. The knowledge to use metals, minerals and fossil fuels has not only accelerated the quality of life but also increased the average life expectancy of a human. Five hundred years ago Earth had a total human population of just around one billion and today it’s brimming at seven billion. This mind boggling numbers are fantastic achievement for the human civilisation. If we are able to live happily, a very comfortable life with all our loved ones around then it’s all thanks for the scientific inclination of man. The discovery of the fossil fuel in the early eighteen hundreds meant more than just transport and energy, but also lead to the creation of almost all of the industries that we have taken for granted. Dyes, Plastics, Fertilizers, Medicine and so on…

All these frenzied activities come at a cost. You pay for the food once we have had it, for those who did not check on the price before they had their food, the bill that follows will be a shocker. But it has to be coughed up. That’s exactly how we have all been behaving. Since the past two hundred years our voracious appetite for anything that nature has, without realising the consequence of our acts will prove to be costly.

The price may not be paid by those who used up the resources wastefully, but by their future generations.

We being one of the most emotional creatures, it hurts us more when our off springs are hurt half as much as we could tolerate. That being the nature of things its time that we all collectively sit up, take notice and start making changes.

            The oil that was put away by mother earth was dug up from its grave, no matter if it was in the hottest of the deserts or deep beneath the abyss of the oceans. This liquid gold has powered the entire human race this long. The lay man who can read prices can figure out that when the prices are going up, it can mean only two things. Either the demand is going up or there is short fall in the commodity being sold. With countries like India and China on a growth spree demand is definitely up, but some times we notice even if the demand goes down the prices looms high. We have reached the peak oil output capacity. None of the oil producing nations can produce more of the black gold any more than they can produce now.

At this point in time if we juxtapose the histories of all the nations, Oil which is a natural resource to all has been used up the developed nations more than the nations that are still developing. The reason the developed nations are doing well with infrastructure and economy is because they used up this resource more. But now the other countries who are trying to catch up are finding it expensive to afford this resource because of the lack of it. To settle this discrepancy there are various arrangements being made by the UN, one of them being carbon credit, but none to make a decisive impact to our future. For example countries using up more natural resource than the allocated quota should pay up companies that are using lesser than their quota in developing nations. This is to put a cap on the carbon emissions and let the emerging nations grow, but what it is set out to achieve is a one degree drop in the global temperature rise by 2050. Just one Degree! That is too much effort and resources wasted for a very small impact.

The old men who have one foot in the grave cannot tell the current generation what needs to be done. The new generation cannot be told how to fix their future. Its time to Clean up our Act. The internet has set the stage. Next generation kids are communicating with each other at unprecedented speed and veracity. Geographical barriers and language stop no one from getting the message across. Starting a movement is as easy as logging on to twitter and posting a tweet. A single message out there with enough conviction and greater cause can muster enough support in a matter of few hours. I am not suggesting anyone to scuttle around right now to make hand outs, pluck cards and banners and cause in convenience to several others to gather attention and force your thoughts and opinion on them.

Change can be subtle, yet effective. Profitable yet environment friendly. Unpopular yet necessary. The propositions below need not be agreeable but definitely is worth a few minutes of thought. If it can provoke to take a tangent action still towards the objective of restoring equilibrium for mother earth then it’s fruitful.

Get yourself a bicycle. There are times when we need to go places near by which is not close enough to walk nor far enough to  drive. A bicycle will not only get you there free of cost but improve your health. As you get fitter you can go further. Every time saving up money at the expense of getting fitter and causing lesser traffic congestion. If you can’t cycle use the public transport.

Grow your own vegetables. One tomato from our own garden tastes much better then the most expensive tomato you can buy at the super store.  The cost is not only of the tomato, there are other costs that we don’t pay. What about the cost of the damage to the soil where artificial fertiliser was used. What about the cost of the truck exhaust that carried the tomatoes from the farm to the store. What about the cost of recycling the plastic bag that the tomatoes came in. The 5 $ Burger at McDonalds actually cost 128$ if all the other environmental cost are added to its price. A single tomato from your own garden can be consumed with clean conscious.

Take a pee in your garden once a while. One pays for ammonium sulphates and nitrates at the plant store which has its origin from crude oil while wasting away the ones we have for free in the toilets. There is no harm to the plant and the soil gets replenished the natural way. You save money on fertiliser and your plants look greener. This goes for the dog poo the one scoops and puts it away in a plastic bag to be thrown in a bin. Throw the same in the garden and you might see a flower bloom over it in a few days.

Buy food at the stores at the clearance section. Food waste is one of the most atrocious ways of misusing resources. Tonnes of food are being dumped just because its expiry date is to close. You can save money on the groceries and you have done justice to the food and environment.

Switch to energy efficient lamps and timers on heaters. The irony is even if every single incandescent light bulb in U.S.A is changed to CFL bulbs it will be one tenth that the energy wasted in Russia using outdated electricity transmission technology. In fact the energy wasted is enough to power entire UK. Having said this, there needs to be a start. Even smarter architecture can use more natural light and better insulation can save a lot. Solar water heaters and Photovoltaic cells do more good in the long run.

• Recycle to the next level. Every man made object if viewed from a slightly different angle can serve more than one purpose. An Empty bucket of chocolates can be a pot for a plant. An empty plastic pet bottle can be cut and shaped to make a broom. The complex polymer compounds in plastics are not natural and on average take 99 years to decompose. Make the most and if you cannot, make sure it’s put in the recycle bin.
• Buy less of goods and make most of what you have. It’s easy to spend some money at the shopping store because most of us get a kick out of it. Unpacking the new gizmo from the box can be exciting, but the cost of getting rid of the package and the older product that is being replaced is generally ignored. Electronic goods turn poisonous to soil and recycling it is harder and even more dangerous to the people who recycle them.

All we have is one home and if leave behind a messy home, our children has to live in it and they, who are not responsible for it will end up paying for it. All can start by being optimistic about our future and do our little bit. There will be day when the kids of future will look at a piece of plastic on the road side with aghast like how we treat a road kill and the kids of the future will treat a road kill with enough respect to treat is as a part of nature.

 Because one day for us all its Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust,

 In the meantime to preserve this plant, endeavour we must