The World E Day: Are we going to Pick Right?

The World E Day: Are we going to Pick Right?

Are you going to seriously pick something right to save the environment you live in? If yes, please start doing it from May 5, for it is the World Environment Day. All the national debates, seminars, symposiums and even the periodic ritualistic intentional summits on environmental protection like the last Bali conference notwithstanding, the real change is going to take place only when we think in terms of proactive lifestyle picks aimed at either saving the already harmed environment we live in or not harming it anymore in anyway.

It’s all fine to be concerned about the environment. But all the concerns get their due meaning only when they are translated into responsible actions that every thinking individual is capable of performing. However, our very attitude towards environment is more of words than of deeds. We hardly do anything on this line unless the so called environmental hazards start affecting our personal lives, the lives that flourish among the four cozy walls of our homes, to be precise, in our bed rooms. We claim that we are educated, civilized and advanced. Though it won’t be too far when we happen to have such a hazardous environmental scenario, we individually do precious little to save the planet.

On this day, May 5, let’s all reiterate that everyone is responsible for whatever environmental impacts we are suffering from and it is we who are going do our due shares so as to cut down on environmentally unfriendly deeds. What shall we do individually to Pick Right?

1. Shall we learn to live with smaller families and minimal needs and comforts? It pays to be taking what one actually needs from the environment. This will help the nature maintain its recycling mechanism in tact so that the whole world will be able to sustain whatever number of beings that may come to occupy in it in all the ages to come. We are able to do something towards this, I am sure.

2. It is the well being of the world outside that is actually going to decide the well being of our world inside our homes. Therefore, never ever spoil, litter or deface the environment thinking that, oh, it is some else’s issue. If you think so, please remember that you are a mere someone to every other person you see outside your family. So, think inclusively. Please ensure that you help the society process the wastes of all types that get generated in your homes. Do not discard gunny bagsful of your wastes on the wayside. It is hazardous to be so uncouth.

3. Buy things that come with very little wastes attached. Go natural for your personal care needs. It is the personal care goods that leave the biggest chunk of waste in our indoors. Tubes, sachets, containers, covers, packets and their inlays and consoles are unmanageable. They come for a price and they come here to stay. So please adopt responsible and eco-friendly shopping practices.

4. Meanwhile, please keep a shopping bag with you. It would discourage the most hazardous plastic carry bags. Don’t buy things that harm your well being. Take a decision today that you would never buy things that come with freebees. They are threats to environment. In today’s commercialized world order, you get much less than what you pay for. There is nothing called a free meal. No manufacturer is idiotic enough to offer you things for free. So, responsible shopping is more environmental. Make good buys, and say good bye to all those things that the market forces thrust upon you. They may force you to buy. But you need not force them to sell.

5. How about our eating habits? Do you know one thing that our ineffectual tongue does greater harm to our environment than all the industrial exhaust pipes and chimneys do. In order to satiate the taste buds, we go for exotic dishes and junk food. They are hazardous not only to our health but to your natural wealth also. You eat much more than what your anatomy needs. It creates imbalance in the supply demand chain. As you demand more, the nature and manufacturers have to produce more. More production leads to environmental concerns of various types. Producing more by spending too much raw material, exerting undue pressure on the power grid, burning a lot of fuel in transport, emitting a lot of gases and fumes in the process of production and transport, and so goes the list of environmental disorders you make out of your efforts to satisfy your taste buds. So it is a better idea to eat to be fit and be fit to be eating all life long. It is not only environment friendly, it is you-and-your-family-friendly also. Go for home-mades and thus go green. Glass bottles, ceramic cups, containers and plates are much better than their disposable counterparts.

6. When it comes to our mobility, what if we walk short distances? And for moderate distances let’s have a bicycle ride, and for family trips we may go for our cars or two wheelers. What if make long distance journeys in buses, stage carriers, trains and such modes of mass mobility! It is fun travelling together. It is great fun when you travel with strangers or people who you have no knowledge of before. Doing so, you are not burning petrol or diesel for your selfish travel comforts, your vehicle does not add to the traffic congestion and the pollution thereof, you do not face death and deformity on the way in the form of accidents, and finally your wallet will have regular breathers. Walking, the healthiest of human actions, is mentally and environmentally relaxing. Agreed!

7. Luxuries like palatial homes, their exotic interiors and power supported appliances and light fittings, costly mobiles, automobiles and similar cosmetic social value parameters, our insatiable greed and ever increasing glut for more, our chronic obsession with what is in store for us and finally our uncouth attitude and criminal indifference towards whatever is not ours are much more hazardous to the environment than all those parochial claims and petty counter claims the developing and the developed nations exchange at international environmental forums and climate summits.

8. Please remember, it is the above said human behaviour that necessitates this life threatening environmental uncertainty. All claims on carbon emission, green cover loss, temperature rise, ozone depletion, melting glaciers, rising sea levels, climate change and the like are results of the same human behaviour. So it is time we all came to the picture, an all encompassing frame.

If we all could live sustainable and mutually depending lives, the environment we live in will be a much better place in the coming days too. So, on this May 5th, we may take a resolve that our coming days are more environmentally responsible days, and every one of us stay bound to do our shares not to harm the surroundings any more, no matter whether the Bali Climate Summit is rejected by the US, or the Kyoto Protocol is a farce for some nations or the developing countries are bearing the brunt of global environmental impacts necessitated be developed countries. The onus lies in every one of us.


Please act, not react. And we all may pleasantly come to understand in the long run that every responsible action is a reaction and every such action will make many a people react in more ways than one. Will this May 5 mark the beginning of such a responsible behavior from you and me and all around us? Please say, yes. Yes, from this May 5 onwards, I repeat, right from this May 5 onwards, I am going to Pick Right lifestyle choices.