The many natural disasters in the form of floods, earthquakes, cyclones, hurricanes and droughts have ravaged the earth like never before. These have led to massive destruction of property, and loss of human lives that’s far greater than many of the terror attacks put together.

There was a time when the seasons arrived perfectly on time. The festivals marked the on- coming of a particular season. Diwali announced the on-set of winter, Holi brought in spring with its many colours while Christmas brought in the first snowfall. However for past hundreds of years, we have continuously abused our planet to a degree that it fought back and unleashed all its fury upon us in the form of natural disasters. Imagine a scenario when a massive cyclone hits Mumbai or an earthquake upturns Delhi. It’ll cause unimaginable devastation and destruction.
Throughout the world agricultural land is shrinking, diseases are spreading, and earthquakes, famines and floods have become a part of our lives. The most severe crisis that we are about to face is food. Unfortunately food cannot be manufactured. It grows.
There’s massive deforestation going all over the world. We saw its result in the flash floods of Kedarnath and in many other parts of the world. The entire Aravalli range near Delhi is being cut down as stone quarries, and sand mining have reduced them to a rubble. Along with that many builders have bull-dozed their way into these hills building multi-storeyed towers. The hot winds blowing in from Rajasthan which were blocked by the Aravalli’s now spread their terror inside the national capital. Delhi has almost turned into a desert with extreme temperatures ranging from 48 degrees in summer to a low of 2 to 3 degrees in winters.
The biggest threat to human kind is that there is no plan-et B, C, D, or E for us. There are no options. There’s only one planet. Our Earth. It’s time that we start thinking of the whole planet and become the citizens of Earth rather than fighting for petty issues with other states and countries.
Sir Isaac Newton wrote, “The very fact that Earth is at the perfect distance from Sun, receives right amount of sunlight and has the right amount of air and water to sustain life is not a matter of chance, it seems to have been placed there.” The earth never broke our trust. For last millions of years it has been revolving and rotating at a constant speed, the gravitational force has been perfect at each and every corner of our planet and has the perfect tilt on its axis to give us night and day. It never broke out of its orbit but we have constantly faltered and broken its trust.
We are zooming off into space to find some comets and planets when we should be taking care of this Earth. Once this Earth is dead, we might travel light years into space and beyond time, but we won’t find another such place. Maybe when the Earth will run dry and there will be hardly any life left, then we’ll realize. It will be too late.
The big question everyone asks, “What can we do?” The answer is simple, “Be simple. Lead simple lives.” Delhi government’s odd-even formula might not be practical but as citizens of this earth we can reduce the use of vehicles and number of vehicles on road. There’s no need to have three cars per household. It’s high time that more and more people start using the public transport. It’s not only the government’s job to check pollution but we all need to be responsible for our environment and for this planet. So stop demanding and complaining to the government. Start doing. Now. Or it’ll be too late. Be it car-pool, a car free day, using bicycles to run errands from nearby markets or using public transport on alternate days. Do it! And teach your kids to do it.
Another big factor is the use of plastic. In spite of strict action against polythene bags, they are still in use all across the country. Most supermarkets hand them out for 2-3 rupees. There need to be a blanket ban on all such plastic and polythene bags. We can easily replace it with jute or cloth bags.
We are a billion plus country and one step is enough for us to achieve anything. Imagine each one of us planting one tree. Just one tree per person. We can turn any of our polluted cities into the greenest and most beautiful city. So find a place near your house, in the park, on the roadside, near farmlands or anywhere and plant one tree each. This movement itself will make all the change we need.
This is a unique opportunity for all of us to come together and engage to fight against the horrors of climate change. Only this time, the weapon of change is love, awareness and sustained action.