Today is the day dedicated to the environment. You can see this day as another “holiday” that appears on your calendar, without the right to a day off, when people leave their cars in the garage, and top corporate executives talk about their projects for the environment.
Is it another day, full of false promises and intentions to improve the environment, and then everything is as it always was?
Well maybe environment day should be a day to take a break for reflection. In the United States Earth Day is celebrated; children dress up as butterflies and dance around trees in the streets, squares and parks while adults drink organic wine and beer produced by micro-breweries that use sustainable technology that does not harm the environment. They are not changing the world by doing this, but at least they are aware of what it takes to do so. The first step to reducing environmental impact is to create awareness of the problem.
On this day, we should all relax and honestly assess what we can contribute to reducing the impact we have on the world around us.. .
We can start to recycle and use less plastic, or buy products that don’t harm the environment. We can pay attention to the labels of national and imported products and the environmental policy of the country of origin.
Small awareness. Maybe you start to realize that you shouldn’t throw cigarettes out the car window, not only to avoid causing a fire, but because the butt will stay hundreds of years on the planet due to the filter in the tip, and throwing it out the window won’t solve this problem.
You are a decent person. Why not show a little respect for the environment that presents you with so many things? People ignore the needs of the environment and the impacts they cause on it for several reasons, it can be laziness, greed, indifference and in the poorest countries out of ignorance.
On International Environment Day and Earth Day we have the opportunity to break down all these barriers and recreate bonds with nature. There are many children who do not know that the egg comes from the chicken, not from the supermarket. Worse, too many children have never seen a chicken. It’s the ideal day to reflect a little on our beautiful and so pleasant land, and on how you can help keep it the way it is.
For me, it wasn’t Earth Day that made me think more about the world around me. I started to get involved with this environmentally friendly site after a personal experience in Borneo.
I’m resting beside a small stream in the Sabah rainforest on the island of Borneo, Malaysia, and I’m watching the water moving quickly over worn, round rocks. The rhythm of the flow increases over a short waterfall and finally empties into a clear pool. Butterflies of vibrant colors, yellow, orange, and green dance in the columns of light that penetrates through the canopy of trees. The song of the birds and the cry of the hornbill challenge the rhythmic drone of the cicadas. The forest is never silent and yet it brings a deep sense of calm.
I sit with my feet in the cool water, searching for the leeches on my clothes, which seek food in every crease in the material. As I pull out these vibrantly colored, leaf-eating creatures, I’m content to watch a lone male orangutan monkey waddle slowly through the undergrowth above the stream. The idyllic surroundings and the company of my simian brother with the red beard are the perfect end to the half-day trek.
Eight weeks after leaving this forest in Malaysia, which filled me with so much happiness, I learned that it had been destroyed, the trees cut down and ground into micro-platelets and supplied to a paper pulp plant. This place, full of wonders and beauty, was lost forever. It turned into a personal agenda or a printout of time card data. The orangutan ape, hornbills, butterflies, and even leeches had to figure out what to do in their dramatically changed environment. Many would not be able to adapt to the new environment and would disappear forever. They made room in the world so that we could have more paper.
If we use our intelligence and innovation, the human species can preserve biodiversity and unique places for future generations, without compromising the quality of life for current populations. On the contrary, the quality of life will improve for future generations.
On this day, the day of the environment, stop for a minute and remember a place where something memorable happened to you and then try to imagine how you would feel if this place no longer existed. If we are not aware, one day this place could be Earth.
