Early this morning, Google via its doodle, informed me that it is Earth day. When I was younger, I remember discussing this is in school. We never spoke of it again. This topic only popped up in essays of exams. No one in school thought of the necessity to educate or even give us an opportunity to mull this over and voice our thoughts. It may have been because we had grown up and we had more pressing matters to argue at school. Honestly, does anyone really get too old to talk about our Earth? I think not, thus after all these years, I felt the sudden urge to analyse this topic.
Today’s Google doodle is brightly colourful. Pity we seldom see such lush greenery in our busy schedules. Moreover, it’s not just our life style that keeps us away from our Earth’s blessings. Summer is ravaging this part of the world I call home. Nowadays, people prefer staying indoors because the sun is ferociously scorching. This, experts say, is most unnatural. Mother Earth is not so cruel as to torture her children. Who then, can we hold responsible? The obvious answer hangs over our heads, only we don’t make attempts to accept it.
It is natural for a country’s government to face pressures. Of late, one of the huge pressures our government has met is the farmers’ issue. Farmers of Indian villages couldn’t bear to see all their crops in a withered state and thus, heartbroken, they committed suicide. This, is not the story of an individual; it is the life of those villagers without whom our plates wouldn’t be filled with mountains of culinary delights.
Why did the crops wither? Why hasn’t the land been drenched from the blessings of clouds? The answers to these queries are found in our junior school text books. I remember studying something about trees being our life blood; maybe there is a connection. Then why didn’t it ring a bell before we bulldozed these trees?
When I appeared for the Board Exams earlier this year, the examiners instructed us to strike out the pages remaining unwritten. It seemed such an ordinary instruction; it happens all the time. On the first day of exam, once I had finished my writing, I had about five pages unwritten. The hall supervisor reminded me to strike out the extra pages. I took my pencil and ruler to follow instructions; I hadn’t felt anything until then, but when I began to draw those diagonal lines, it struck me how many trees would have been ‘struck out’ as such as unwritten; unused. That’s when I felt guilty of our educational system altogether.
Couldn’t we use recycled paper for our writing purposes? Is writing on whiter paper more significant than the future of our generations? Isn’t the price a bit too high? It’s what I feel.
Scientists discover new things even as I write this. Science and technology have opened up the possibilities of what our ancestors considered impossible. We read articles and hear news of the wonderful services Science has done to humanity. Man is now considered (by himself) as the ‘cleverest’ among creatures that has walked this Earth. Hasn’t it occurred to the ‘cleverest’ people that it is the same inventions and discoveries that led to the puncture in Ozone? It must have occurred to them at some point, because it is in some book that I read of it. So, we know enough to write bestselling books, printed on paper made from felled trees, and displaying concern about preservation of trees and of Ozone’s pity predicament.
Also, the entire concept of ‘Earth Day’, seems like an all new veil to hoodwink; one to convince ourselves that we can actually do something to pull out Earth from the pit we have ruthlessly thrust it into.
Stupid people.
The Chaos Within 