Earth Day 05: Everyday for Everybody
Earth Day: Everyday for Everybody
Suramya D. Vora, IFS
Executive Director
Gujarat Council of Science City
Sola – Santej Road, Ahmedabad-380 481
With the environment under siege, it's more important than ever for conservationists to be attentive and active in their efforts. Earth Day on April 22 provides an opportunity to reinitiate our effort to work for sustainable development for our society, state, nation or planet.
This year's Earth Day theme is "Water for Life," and many people will reconsider their daily activities to find ways to improve the health of our environment. All over the planet, millions of people are joining together on Earth Day in events to protect our precious water resources and show that we want a more hopeful future.
Started 35 years ago, Earth Day was designed "to shake up the political establishment and force [the environment] onto the national agenda," said Earth Day founder Gaylord Nelson, then a U.S. senator from Wisconsin.
On 22nd April 1970, about 20 million people from more than 2000 communities in USA took to the streets to demand better environmental quality and to preserve the quality of air, water and soil. They made elected officials in that democratic country sit up and took notice of their demands. This and other such citizens’ actions were instrumental in leading President Richard Nixon to establish Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) of USA in the same year.
This year, over 500 million people in 12,000 groups in 174 countries around the world took part in the Earth Day celebrations that lasted over the whole month. The Gujarat Council of Science City dedicates itself towards this noble cause and spreading the awareness to save the mother earth.
Thus Earth Day is a day to demonstrate to those who run our world that we care for nature. It is a huge world-wide demonstration asking politician and policy makers to wake up and do something to save our planet. Today, such a shakeup is more necessary than ever and Gujarat Science City (GCSC) is working to lead the effort for a better environmental future.
GCSC has planned a series of nature activity workshops and training course for the entire year for different target groups. All these programmes are designed to cater the various conservative practices about our rich Bioresources and biodiversity. We are thankful to the National Council for Science & Technology Communication (NCSTC), Department of Science and Technology, Govt of Gujarat and Govt of India and Department of Biotechnology, Govt of India for catalyzing and supporting the above programmes.
GCSC is also wish to put on record for the support that we received from various organizations like GEER Foundation. Department of Forests, Govt of Gujarat, GUJCOST, GCERT, Department of Education, State Project Office of DPEP Programme for putting their efforts to select the target groups for the above programmes.
Water for life: the water cycle, humans have, seriously altered fundamental to all life on Earth. This presents problems both for the natural world and for people's access to safe drinking water.
Pure water is essential for all life on Earth. The Earth is 70% water, as are our bodies. We can last for about 2-3 weeks without food, but we would be dead within 3 days without water. What we do to our water, we do to ourselves.
Humans are increasingly putting this precious resource in serious danger. We poison our ground and surface water. We burn fossil fuels that cause acid rain and global warming. We build dams across our rivers, interrupting water flow and destroying delicate ecosystems downstream. We clear vegetation and pave massive land areas, decreasing the groundwater level and increasing flooding and soil erosion. On top of all this, those with access to the most water are wasting vast amounts of it.
Importance of Biodiversity: The delicate web of life that connects all plants, animals and their habitats is being torn by global warming, development, industrial agriculture, forestry, fishing practices, toxic waste, and many other threats.
Biodiversity is all of the Earth's plants, animals, ecosystems and genes. It includes the tallest tree, the smallest insect, and the most delicate coral reef ecosystem. Biodiversity is what allows the Earth and all of its creatures to adapt and survive.
As humans, we are completely dependent on biodiversity for survival. Yet we are destroying large parts of our natural world. In places far and wide, humans are squeezing out other forms of life, sometimes causing the extinction of entire species.
We have the power to change our course. Each of us can act to protect our biodiversity and help create a sustainable future for life on Earth.
Vanishing Forests: Forests are so much more than just trees - they purify our air, protect our soil, and provide food and shelter for millions of species. Unsustainable forestry practices are threatening the last of our planet's ancient forests.
If forests fail to strike you as beautiful, peaceful and worthy of existence for their own sake, take a moment to consider their value to natural systems. Forests are the lungs of our planet. They purify the air, protect our water and soil, and are a critical habitat to millions of animals and plants.
By destroying our forests, we are losing our most reliable friend in the struggle with global warming, floods, droughts and soil erosion. We are wiping out the guardians of the planet's freshwater resources and the garden that gives life to medicinal plants, foods, and many other products.
Energy for living: Energy allows us to stay warm, prepare our food, and move around. Yet our reliance on polluting energy sources is changing our climate and dirtying our air and water.
Energy is integral to virtually every aspect of life - it is hard to imagine life without it. Yet many of our most serious threats to clean air, clean water, and healthy ecosystems stem from humans' energy use.
Currently, most energy is produced from coal, oil, natural gas, and uranium. These energy sources pollute our air and water, change the Earth's climate, destroy fragile ecosystems, and endanger human health. A large amount of the energy we generate is wasted, raising energy costs and harming the environment.
We can meet our energy needs while protecting human health, our climate, and other natural systems. The solution is a rapid transition to energy efficiency and the use of clean, renewable energy sources such as the sun and wind. Renewable energy sources are abundant and inexhaustible. They do not use fuel, so fuel costs and price fluctuations are not an issue. They generate energy with minimal pollution, causing no oil spills, nuclear meltdowns, nuclear wastes, smog, or acid rain.
Our concern:
In order to create a sustainable society or world, we must "meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."
We are not meeting the needs of the present. "If current trends of 30 percent of the global population living in poverty continue, the number of people living in poverty by the year 2015 will rise to 1.9 billion." That is one third of the world's current population.
We are also compromising future generations' ability to meet their own needs - by polluting our air, water and soil and destroying our planet's biodiversity. If we continue our current lifestyles, we will severely limit the ability of future generations to maintain a reasonable quality of life.
Although the problems may seem overwhelming, we can create a sustainable future for our children while we meet the needs of the present.
Even the simplest everyday activities can make a real difference in preserving our planet; educating our self and our family, switching off lights, buying recycled products, using safe alternatives to household chemicals, raising concerns for such issues and more. All are simple steps. Together, they can tilt the balance from extinction to survival.
The Earth Day celebration may be a platform to help move us toward a hopeful and sustainable future. According to a quote by Baba Dioum, an environmental activist “We will conserve only what we love, we will love only what we understand, and, we will understand only what we are taught….” With this spirit, let’s start to conserve and protect our environment.
Working together, we can leave our children a living planet.
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