Earth Day 2013

Monday marked the 43rd anniversary of Earth Day, It’s always struck me how differently different cultures personify the Earth. As Hindus, we view the Earth as ‘Dharti Mata’…Mother Earth – nurturing, caring, like a mother. Every morning before getting out of bed, we are exhorted to ask forgiveness for stepping on her. The Greeks used to view the Earth as ‘Gaia’, personifying the Earth as a giant connected ecosystem, working to maintain balance and harmony within the environment.
But how do we view the Earth today? We certainly don’t treat the Earth as reverently as we once did, that’s for sure. This arises out of the western view that sees the Earth and all its creatures as being there for our exploitation.
We cut down trees, burn fossil fuels, and spray insecticides like there’s no tomorrow. We clear massive swathes of trees to build factories, to plant specific crops or just to do landscaping to make the place ‘prettier’. Basically, we’re doing our best to make sure there’s no tomorrow.

Humans have impacted the Earth in a big way, and going by all of the climate change and global warming dangers, we haven’t exactly been a positive influence.
But we can’t just decide to shut down our factories, stop driving our cars, stop constructing buildings. As a species, we’re continuously trying to move forward, trying to make discoveries, it’s not realistic to think that we could just shut down and go back to the Stone Age. But this drive does not have to translate itself as destroying the Earth,
At the individual level, we could try to do the little things, which in my estimation will result in a ‘big thing’ – a shift in the paradigm of how we view the earth.
One of our biggest problems, for instance, is that many of us seem to have absolutely no problem with littering. Without compunction, most throw wrappers out of car windows like confetti to celebrate their don’t-give-a-damn attitude and utter disregard for the appearance of their surroundings.
Respect the Earth, respect your surroundings. Hold onto that soda can for just a few minutes until you find a bin.
And when you’re choosing a car to buy, do you really need that giant gas-guzzler? By buying more fuel-efficient vehicles, you would be able to do your part in slowing the depletion of our fossil fuel reserves and also you would be reducing the amount of carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide produced by the combustion of fuel in your engine, since you would be burning less fuel overall.
These are both supposedly little things, but little things can add up – that’s probably the first thing we learnt in math (whoop! Finally, Math…has a purpose in my life). Little things can also subtract out from our destructive impulse.
The world around us is changing, and some of these changes aren’t for the better.
And these aren’t abstract, existential changes. These are real, physical changes we can track and measure and see with our own eyes.
Sea levels are rising. Countries, like Guyana, which are below sea-level, will be greatly affected, especially since most of our population is concentrated on our coast.
So after this Earth Day, start thinking about the Earth. Think about what small part you can play in helping to preserve the Earth.
The Earth won’t be ‘saved’ by some superhero swooping in to fix all of our problems. It’ll be saved by normal people like me and you getting our act together and being more conscious about the way our actions can affect the world around us.
And we do need the Earth to be habitable for quite a while, seeing as we can’t just pack up shop and move to the Moon.