Time to take the call and be the game changer!

It is well said that “where there is no vision, there is no hope”. We are in a dire need to have the vision to save our mother earth and to give the light of hope to our biomes. Climatic changes are evident across the regions and impacts are visible in many sectors of our society—such as human health, agriculture, food security, water supply, transportation, energy, ecosystems and others as well. These impacts are expected to become increasingly disruptive throughout this century and beyond. The climatic changes directly affect human health and wellbeing by decreasing air and water quality across the globe and by increasing the number of problems like global warming, ozone depletion, rising of sea level, degradation of soil quality, storm surge damages and flooding etc. Climatic disruptions have been increasing and are projected to become even more severe in this century, a trend that would diminish the security of world’s wellbeing.

In the growing list of problems due to the climatic changes I would like to bring some more recent facts into notice that as per the recent studies, around 15-20 million gal of toxic mercury is buried in the frozen layers of permafrost, which is almost double of what we have today in our present resources. The climate induced rise in temperature could release it all into the atmosphere. Researchers have recently analyzed and predicted that the northern hemisphere will lose most of its permafrost by 2100, assuming the current greenhouse gas emission continues unobstructed. This will release the trapped mercury from the permafrost, which will easily seep into waterways and become a major toxin.  This toxin would cause a lot of damage to central and peripheral nervous systems of humans and animals.

The melting of ice plates could also release ancient and deadly viruses of 18^th and 19^th centuries (for eg. 1918 Spanish Flu virus, found in mass graves in Alaska’s tundra, Smallpox and the Bubonic plague buried in Siberia) that have been dormant for thousands of years in the frozen permafrost soil layer.

This speedy rise in sea level could be even more than triple every year due to global warming and can increase the sea level to an extent that it would be devastating for the economies and habitability of coastal nations and the world at large.

It’s high time for us to wake up and take our call to save the world. In fact, Nature itself has the invincible power to heal itself and it has the ability to reclaim the damages done, the only need of the hour is to believe in it and to do our bit. It’s well evident from the studies on the Chernobyl’s highly radioactive ‘Exclusion zone’ where wildlife is still thriving 30 years after the nuclear disaster. This zone is still able to support many endangered species of flora and fauna. So it’s well proven that if we care for the nature it pays us back too.

Nowadays people are aware of these challenging conditions. They have the mind frame to conserve the goodness of our nature and save our planet from the ills in future. A very motivating effort is made by Mexico City along with the some other cities in the world which have started converting the city’s concrete columns into vertical gardens to improve the air quality as these green columns will be able to purify air and will provide a purer oxygen. These green columns use the recycled plastic for all its purposes and the elevated highway surfaces are being used to capture the rain water and are efficiently used to keep the plants at work.

In India also, the efforts are no less. People are aware and are very much into making efforts to promote environment friendly ways for protecting the planet and its resources. Sikkim has become India’s first fully organic state with the support of its government and the people where, they stopped using chemical fertilizers, pesticides and made it even a criminal offence in 2014. This movement could be even bigger and grander if we all take our steps and join this movement.

G.D. Goenka Public School, Greater Noida, also works on the same line with a great vision and hope to create a better present and the best future for our coming generations. Once it was said by the secretary general of United Nations that “We are the first generation to be able to end the poverty and the last generation that can take step to avoid worst impacts of climate changes. Future generations will judge us harshly if we fail to uphold our moral and historical responsibilities”. GD Goenka public School is one of those institutions which never fails in fulfilling its duties and responsibilities for the students and for the society as well. The school teaches its students to value the natural resources and motivates them to work sincerely towards the betterment of the environment. They learn the ways to protect our valuable resources and get the essential training for the same. We provide them the opportunity to build the right vision for the future, motivate them to take their call and to bring their own vision into reality where they emerge as ‘The Problem Solvers’ and ‘The Game Changers’.

By Anima Dixit.