Mankind is passing through a very difficult phase of environmental crisis. There is extreme scarcity of water. A continuously decreasing ozone layer has pushed the phenomenon of global warming to dangerous proportions where the Antarctic snow caps have started melting. Unprecedented number of hurricanes from the Atlantic Ocean is pounding the American continent with ferocity beyond imagination. Europe is experiencing a spate of floods never heard of before. Still everything is not lost, we can bring things under control…
The buzz words are ecological consciousness, garbage and green house effect. Enrolment of students in BSc, MSc and environmental engineering has increased. If this spurt of attention has to lead to real improvement, environmentalists and the students together have to do a better job this time around.
But, we have been sentenced to serve life terms in those big green house environmental sciences which we have been talking about for so many years. We may have given birth, already to mankind’s last generation! Our grandchildren, if not our children, may well participate in the final acts of planet Earth’s human drama….. While today’s environmental tragedy unfolding, is responsible for the destruction of our environment.
There could be some horrible future ahead for us. There could be wonderful futures too. I know of no reason why all people on earth could not be cared for, no reason why we could not live in balance with the environment. A rampant green house warming isn’t inevitable. We know exactly what to do to ameliorate it. Use fossils fuels much more efficiently, alternately use CNG, develop solar energy, stop decimating forests, and control our population growth and control senseless craving for material things.
The measures taken shall be worthwhile. They will solve many of our environmental problems all at once. We will be happier, we will even be richer. If we don’t act now, we will destroy ourselves and a lot of other species. Is that a message of doom or an invitation to make a better world?
We have seen in this decade an international ozone agreement, a 30% increase in US energy efficiency, China that is working hard on its population problem, Soviet Union that is beginning to admit its environmental mistakes, American citizens are setting up recycling centre, African citizens are planting trees, even when their leaders give them no encouragement. Just think what they could do if they had some real leadership and what could they do if they were given some real hope and credit.
Don’t play on guilt and fear, play on reason and vision. Don’t castigate those who aren’t acting; spotlight those who are. Tell the truth, don’t dramatize it and don’t assume that you have to make anyone care. Give people ideas of what to do will the care they already have, in much greater measure than most of us are willing to believe.