You might have heard the slogan of ‘Go Green’. But why is it so necessary? And what significance does it hold?Don’t worry, this article will give you factual points as to why it is not just a compulsion but the need of the hour.
Go Green but, why?
Since a very long time, humans have depended on nature to provide for it. While receiving everything from our environment, we forgot the act of being grateful. This led to over exploitation of resources, deforestation, population explosion and so on.
We forgot that while we had to coexist with nature, we undeniably became parasites.
Do you remember revisiting a place from your childhood? How has it changed? This reaction is definitely the same and the most common for most of us. We find new buildings in those parks that we used to play in. We find more cement and less of the green.
But, we discard our concerns with the thought of development. The word itself makes our senses mute to the havoc created by the usage of it.
Humans have contaminated the ecosystems around the world with their activities and greed. This act has heavily tolled towards nature. The plastic everywhere, pollution reaching the atmosphere, noises disrupting the peace of the environment is what we have given in exchange to nature’s kindness.
The Human Impact
Humans have followed a negative stance while acknowledging go green. Their actions say otherwise.
- More than eight million metric tons of plastic has been dumped in the oceans. One can find more plastic in the ocean than fishes.
- The plastic trash in the ocean further breaks down due to exposure by the sun and wave action. This is microplastic.
- Microplastic finds its way into the food chain through biomagnification. Biomagnification here means the process by which toxins and microplastic enters an organism like a fish and starts increasing in its concentration. This is dangerous to the fish species.
- 80 percent of the world’s wastewater is dumped back in the water bodies. This wastewater is mostly untreated. The water bodies include rivers, lakes and oceans which get contaminated and polluted.
Read more on- Water quality in india
The ill-effects
Due to less contributions towards the concept of go green, many spheres of life are affected. These are mentioned as follows-
On Wildlife
- Species extinction is happening one thousand times faster because of human beings and their activities.
- An estimate says that at the rate of 100 to 1,000 species are lost per million per year.
- This is mostly due to human-caused habitat destruction and climate change.
On Humans
- Due to the uncontrolled pollution in water and loss in quality of water, clean water becomes a privilege. Even though being essential for healthy life-
- 1.1 billion people lack access to water.
- 2.4 billion don’t possess the needed amount of water for sanitation purposes.
- According to one estimate, the Global Humanitarian Forum says that due to climate change-
- more than 300,000 deaths occur in developing countries.
- economically, there is a loss of about 125 billion dollars.
On Environment
- Acid rain:
- In the atmosphere, when the water vapours exist.
- When they mix up with chemicals like sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, they form mild acidic compounds. This is due to emissions of these chemicals due to the burning of fossil fuels.
- Now, the rain that precipitates or downpours is toxic. It can leach aluminium components from the soil. This causes stress to the forests, contributes to the air pollution or even kills the fishes.
- Biomagnification:
- As explained above, sometimes, when the particles are too small or ingestible, some animals or organisms can absorb them.
- Now when the toxin has entered the body of an organism, it has entered the food chain.
- Thus, it keeps on growing in concentration as it finally reaches the top predators like fish, birds or mammals.
- This is biomagnification and it can cause:
- diseases,
- birth defects,
- genetic mutation and so on.
- Climate change:
- The sudden increase in temperature, also known as global warming has threatened earth.
- The increase in sea levels, cyclonic activities and uneven rainfall cannot go unnoticed.
- The climate has been changing since a long time but, due to disastrous human activities and human ignorance, the impact has increased.
- The increased amount of flash floods in northern India and the coast is very alarming. It has displaced thousands of people and submerged many low lying regions.
Read more on- Environmental Issues in India
Conclusion
The humans have created a large divide due to their greedy nature. This has not just affected the guilty but the innocents too. I hope after reading this, you won’t feel confused as to why you must go green. If we don’t act now, we won’t get a chance to rectify this. For a place to live ourselves and for the future generations to come.
Steps to Go Green
- Be Aware: Join think tanks for such purposes. Research about certain topics and engage in important discussion.
- Make Aware: Escalate conversations regarding these topics for greater good not just within friend circle but society too. Engaging a whole community to rethink their lifestyle choices is the only way to generate a dialogue.
- Act on your Words: Search up ways to live more sustainably and apply them in real life.
- Hold Accountable: Whenever you read something that the government is doing for development but might cause unrest in the ecosystem, speak yourself. Hold your local officials and elected members accountable for the decisions they take for your city.
- Be Patient: Many a times, you will get engaged in heated arguments due to difference in opinions. Don’t lose your cool, open your mind and listen to them. Sometimes with different points of view you can make your standpoint more inclusive.
- 17 Goals of SDG: Follow up on the SDG fulfilment of your country. You can do that by visiting government portals. If you find discrepancies, don’t feel shy to file an RTI. This makes their work transparent and keeps the citizen’s trust intact.
Let’s take the initiative to be better citizens of the world. Let’s Go Green!
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