No doubt that every day is Earth day, and we should celebrate it so often as it is our real home; however, one single day is devoted to highlight its significance; yes, April 22nd is held annually since 1970 in order to raise public awareness and push the governments to take proper action against environmental issues; it also helps restore the mother Earth which has already lost most of its wilderness and biodiversity due to man-made disasters. In order to reach ecological goals, a lot of hurdles must be cleared and this cannot be achieved without everyone’s involvement on this vital issue.

The way we are living on this planet is getting weird as if we are the last generation to be, and we have nothing left for posterity. We are consuming up all the natural resources, and our carbon footprint is everywhere; greenhouse gas emissions are increasing dramatically every day, and nothing is being done to control and manage them. Of course, there are technologies which can offset the carbon and reduce the amount of the harmful productions, but none is invested in the large scale and most of the ecological ideas get trapped in the valley of death.

This doesn’t mean we can do nothing about it; actually, all of us should be awake and conscious about the global issues that now must be our common interest; to put it another way, the environmental issues and crisis affect each and every one of us and it is our duty to protect it for the future generation; our footprint must be eliminated as much as possible and this needs individual involvement; we should start right from our houses, and we should cut our daily consumption; in other word, we should follow some steps to decrease our tragic impact on this planet. The concept of “Reduce, Recycle, Reuse” seems to be a very logical way to make some differences; believe it or not, these changes will affect the entire world fundamentally. Here are some steps to erase our individual carbon footprint:

1. We should limit our shopping to the stuff we need the most and not buy extra items; minimal packaging must also be considered upon shopping, as most products are packed and wrapped in the planet-destroying plastics.

2. It’s recommended to go partial vegetarian, at least once or twice a week; this will help reduce the market demand for large scale industrial production; that is to say, the less we buy, the less is produced.

3. Classifying and managing waste is also very important; the harm the waste does to our planet is beyond our fantasies. As individuals, we can separate the dry & wet, or recyclable items from each other, and help stop this vicious cycle of hazardous household waste.

4. We should reduce the use of plastic material of any kind; better to stop it, but if not possible, you can lower your use; how? The first thing you can do is to use ecological bags, or cotton bags for your shopping in order to avoid extra plastic bags.

5. One other practical solution is to reduce our personal fossil fuel use at least once or twice a week; nowadays with the growing demand on bicycles, cities are getting equipped with public bicycles, in case you don’t have one. You can also carpool or use different modes of public transportation in order to avoid extra cost and harm.

There are a lot of ways which every single person can do to lower his harmful impact, and to wait for the governments or the politicians to do something is a waste of time; it’s better we roll up our sleeves and preserve the environment for our children.

World Earth Day 2021

Robi B