During COVID-19, most of us, who do not have jobs in the immediate sectors dealing with the pandemic have time to reconsider our impact on our surroundings. Unfortunately, it has taken a global pandemic for most people to realise how important it is, to maintain and even cultivate a healthy environment. The need for clean air and clean surroundings is one of the most important human rights. In only a few months, we have reduced so much of our carbon footprint and wastefulness because we cannot step out of the house. There are serious risks that COVID-19 has brought forth, but it has also brought perspective about a lot of things. About how much we depend on each other regardless of any sort of discrimination, how we are one race, and we have the Earth to take care of, as it takes care of us. We have to realise that we will leave our planet unfit for the future generations if we do not start taking responsibility and work accordingly right now. It is our responsibility as citizens of the world, to take care of each other by taking care of our planet and not exhausting its resources. We have to work together to ensure that the Earth is a place that welcomes the future with clean air, enough water and ozone protection. We need to safeguard and limit the use of non-renewable energies and make sure we use more renewable sources of energy. We have to make sure our cities are battling the excess traffic and pollution with planting and taking care of even more trees. We need to inculcate a more sustainable lifestyle, one that encourages upcycling, recycling, reusing and reducing. We have to dispose-off the ‘use and throw’ plastic mentally and encourage the use of more biodegradable products. There is an eminent need for us to use electricity generated by renewable sources of energy and have big corporations— who can afford it— install solar panels and use them to generate electricity. In terms of disposal of wastage, we need better management of waste to make sure our wastes are not occupying space that can be used for housing and sustainable living. The improvement of our environment will ensure a surge of new growth in the flora and fauna and it will also help in reviving species by removing them from the risk of becoming extinct.
Any business, any venture, whether corporate or individual has to factor in the environment because our environment is an indisputable part of us. We cannot survive without counting on it in everyday survival and changes need to be made for this very reason, because no business or profit scheme can survive without factoring the effect of the environment and asking where the water is coming from, and what food they can have and if they have fresh air. Nature should be an essential point of discussion no matter where in the world you live or work, because it affects us all. We should all be ambassadors of change and welcome sustainable practices of living and teach them to our young ones and inculcate these Sustainable Development Goals as traditions among us and our future generations.
We have to ensure implementation of more technical schemes that ensure the safeguarding of nature, because this life and the earth is given to us only once. As Gandhi ji had rightly said, “The earth has enough for our needs, but not for our greed” we need to implement this to the fullest and make sure we teach our children to follow in these footsteps.
Writer
Dr.Arjumand Zaidi