Going Green Without After-Sale-Service?

Rapidly soaring temperatures have been a growing worry for environmentalists all over the globe. Apart from human beings the animal world too is feeling the ever rising heat. Last summer there was a news from Hyderabad about instances of birds falling on ground out of exhaustion.

Listening this, my  wife remarked in a lighter vein: “The way things are hotting up  we would soon be getting roasted birds from the sky”!

The non serious way we, as a society, tend to tackle the grave issue of controlling heat producing emissions, perhaps would make the “roasted-birds-from-the-sky’ a reality, sooner than later!

There is no gainsaying the fact that most of our efforts to minimise heat generating pollutants boil down to slogan shouting only, which are enacted, ritualistically, in a willy-nilly fashion. 

For instance “Grow more trees”, a ceremonial act that is performed annually during these rainy days by various public and private bodies, proves, in general, to be non productive exercise .

I remember how we in a local college, where I was a faculty member for thirty-six years, used to plant hundreds of saplings every year, on a designated day called “Van Maha Utsav day”. The ‘Utsav’ used to be celebrated with much fanfare and was considered an important college event worth recording in college magazine and annual report, to be read at annual function at the conclusion of the academic session.

Had these plantation drives been enacted faithfully, with plans for the regular after care of the planted saplings, at least ten out of hundred would surely have grown into full-fledged trees every year. 

Even going by this supposed small survival rate of saplings, by today the huge college campus, which is spread over a sprawling 48.3 acres of land, should have turned into a dense jungle. But till date its green part is as good/bad as ever.

Our dangerously callous attitude towards such a serious global warming issue perhaps is the outcome of our lopsided planning that we adopt to tackle any issue.  To solve a problem we keep stressing more upon coining and popularising shimmery slogans than working on actual solutions. “Plant more trees to save the environment”, “save the mother earth” are such  high sounding ‘jumlas’ that result in nothing more than initiating meaningless debates and painting competitions in educational and other altruist institutions. Actual gain; zero! 

What we need to tell one and all is that the mother earth, turning from a fire ball to a globe of ice to the present state, does not need our help to protect her. She is very well equipped to take its own care. On the contrary it is we, whose lives are in danger, who need to be saved or protected or say prolonged!

Let us save ourselves, not only through planting more and more saplings but also by ensuring they grow into trees. It would be like providing a reliable after sale service of a marketed product that ensures rich dividends.