Since the beginning of civilizations, human beings have been in close proximity of Mother Nature and have depended on her for all their needs. Whether it was their hunger pangs, protection against predators or shelter against rains, wind and sun, Mother Nature was always there for them. Everything was meticulously planned and each of the broken pieces, if there was any, was meant to fit into some place or the other. Man’s close alliance with nature can be deduced from cave paintings of the era when there were no written languages. They used to fear nature’s power, worship forces of nature and respect nature. When human beings took to agriculture, they settled on river-banks. The recent excavations of ancient civilizations on the river banks further give proof for the close association with nature. At that time nature was at the core of priorities for human beings followed by society and then at a very late stage came economy in crude sense and later money. At that time the nucleus of man’s activities was Nature and hence it comes at the core. Then with the growing civilizations came the society and the mutual exchange of goods took the shape of money in the later stages and hence economy also came into his list of priorities.
With the passage of time mankind started developing. The industrial revolution saw the mankind taking giant leap in terms of technology and advancements. To feed the ever hungry factories and industries forests were ruthlessly cut down. The natural resources were being consumed at an alarming rate. Rich and powerful countries started colonising poor countries and used their manpower and depleted their natural resources, thereby leaving very little for them. This was where I personally feel that unsustainability came into picture for the first time. Now the poor country were so poor that they could not buy themselves natural resources and hence their opportunities to develop were cut short by the developed nations. The smokes from the factories, the wastes etc were doing their own bit to degrade the environment. To add to this automobiles came into the picture. People got more and more dependent on them and thereby making the air more and more polluted and depleting the oil wells of the world. People started progressing at the cost of nature. The world was turning materialistic. Money and wealth, shamefully, took on as the core of priorities for the mankind. Nature was sidelined completely and it continues to be sidelined even today.
Need of the hour is to realize that it is not the nature that needs us for its survival; it is us who need nature for our existence. The earth has been here for millions of years without any human being or any civilization. The earth was there at the times of dinosaurs and it is still here when the dinosaurs are extinct. It will continue to exist even when we become extinct. Our generation is already being labelled an ‘anthropocene’, which defines our period of time in Earth’s history as being the first in which activities of humans first began to have a significant global impact on the Earth’s climate and ecosystems. We have done a lot of damage to the Mother Earth and it’s the time now that we should start working to mend these damages. Money is something that we have invented and it is not an indispensible thing. It’s true that it is necessary for our existence but acquiring wealth at the cost of environment is a matter of serious concern.
We should start working in this regard and as it is said that charity begins at home, we can start right from our home incorporating certain sustainable practices in to our lives. To start with 3 minute shower is a very good idea. Also, we should keep our homes and surroundings clean and use recyclable products as far as possible. We should segregate the waste into recyclable and non recyclable products and dispose them accordingly. We should be careful while disposing poisonous products like lithium ion batteries, etc and instead of throwing them away put them into recycle. Instead of using polythene bags we should use green bags or bags made from some other natural fibers like jute, etc. instead of installing geysers in our bathrooms, we can opt for installing solar water-heaters. CFL’s are effective medium for lowering power consumption. These are only a few practices that I am writing and there are millions of other healthy practices that can be incorporated into our lives without changing our lives much. I pen down here requesting all to come up with sustainable practices in their daily lives and do suggest us with some. The Mother Nature needs us and we cannot ignore her. It is the time that we should change our priorities and nature should become our top most priority. This is the best thing for mankind and we need to realize it. Let’s form a society – a cleaner, a greener and a more sustainable one.
-Kumar
