Editor in Chief: Moh. Reza Huwaida Friday, March 29th, 2024

The Earth Day

|

The Earth Day

April 22 is celebrated as "Earth Day", internationally. The basic purpose of the celebration of this day is to promulgate awareness regarding sensitization towards the earth's natural environment. This day is celebrated in more than 175 countries of the world, through the arrangement of different efforts to let the people realize the importance of preserving the natural environment.

The information regarding the inception of the day reveals that the name and concept of Earth Day was allegedly pioneered by John McConnell in 1969 at a UNESCO Conference in San Francisco. Earth Day was first observed on March 21, 1970, the first day of spring in the northern hemisphere.

This day of nature's equipoise was later sanctioned in a Proclamation signed by Secretary General U Thant at the United Nations where it is observed each year. About the same time a separate Earth Day was founded by United States Senator Gaylord Nelson as an environmental teach-in first held on April 22, 1970.

While this April 22 Earth Day was focused on the United States, an organization launched by Denis Hayes, who was the original national coordinator in 1970, took it international in 1990 and organized events in 141 nations. Numerous communities celebrate Earth Week, an entire week of activities focused on environmental issues. In 2009, the United Nations designated April 22 International Mother Earth Day. Earth Day is planned for April 22 in all years at least through 2015.

Earth's environment has been experiencing certain degradation due to addition of excessive contaminants. These contaminants are basically the outcome of chemicals and products that are being invented and used with a great pace in the modern world.

There is no doubt that the scientific inventions have blessed human beings with myriads of facilities; however, the improper use of these facilities and their mismanagement has brought them some evils, as well. These evils have the capacity to disturb our environment and introduce disorder within the ecosystem that is necessary for the life to exist on the planet earth.

It is really important to note that the possibility of life to exist within the known universe is limited to the planet earth alone. The distance of the earth from the sun, its temperature and other physical conditions exist in such an ordered manner that life is guaranteed here.

Moreover, the dependence of living beings on one another, their interactions and their reaction and influence over the environment have certain proportional arrangement, which is termed as eco-system by the scientists. If this eco-system is disturbed in some way or the other, the life is disturbed and the contaminants that are let loose by human beings in the environment has the capacity to disturb it greatly and has the capacity to endanger existence on earth.

The contaminants basically form pollution, which can influence environment in many different ways. Pollution does not affect the air alone, there are different types of pollution that include; light pollution, littering, noise pollution, soil contamination, thermal pollution, visual pollution, water pollution and some others.

Though from the very inception of human beings' civilized life, there have been pollution, there has been extensive increase in it in today's world. With the industrial revolution, the release of pollutants within the natural environment has kept on increasing.

Today, we are standing at a stage where many serious minds think that we have to be serious about saving our earth from the menace of pollution. There are some important concerns that most of the environmental scientists believe should be pondered upon extensively.

The first one is the degradation of natural environment to the extent that can prove fatal for most of human beings. Already, the pollutants within the environment have been able to introduce different kinds of diseases in the living beings, which, if left unchecked, can go out of control.

The other concern is regarding the overall warming up of the globe; this concept is known as "global warming". This concept suggests that with the increase in pollution, there will be considerable rise within the average temperature of the world that may, at maximum, result in the liquefying of the glaciers on the poles and may drown the whole world.

Moreover, considerable rise in temperature may disturb the conditions of living on earth and may disrupt the eco-system and jeopardize the existence. However, there are scientists and thinkers who believe that the climatic changes may take thousands of years. There has been cycle of changes and there will be such changes in the future as well. The climate of the earth will not keep on rising rather it will keep on experiencing fluctuations after certain years. In fact, they do not seem much convinced regarding the theory of global warming. Nevertheless, it must never be forgotten that the uncontrolled release of pollution can cause serious damage to earth and its environment.

The need of time is to save the earth by adopting appropriate policies. Any effort in this regard needs to be two-dimensional. Firstly, every individual must feel his/her responsibility towards the earth and must make sure that he/she does not become a reckless being and must prove helpful for the environment.

However, extensive awareness programs in this regard can be really helpful. The earth day, April 22, can be used very positively in this regard and much can be taught to the people through different sorts of programs and techniques. Secondly, there have to be efforts on national level as well. The governments in different countries can adopt strict laws regarding the safeguard of the environment and can make sure that different industries and enterprises adopt atmosphere-friendly attitude.

Some of the thinkers suggest that the issues that are raised regarding the global warming or too many concerns about the environment are not international issues and they are over-emphasized so that the attentions of the people should be diverted from the basic problems of the society and they become easily governable.

They even claim that the days like "Earth Day" are the luxury that can be afforded only by West. The developing and under-developed countries cannot afford to waste time on such non-issues; rather they have many other basic issues that they should concentrate on.

Such views have their importance but taking care of environment must never be neglected. There can be changes in the way the issue is treated but it cannot be neglected altogether. For example, the developed countries of the world can be made more responsible for solving the issue, while the other nations can deal with their basic issues.

Moreover, there can be different ways of celebrating the Earth Day. One of the ways, in my perception, is to celebrate the day in such a manner so as to highlight the importance of the Earth and make the people realize to go against the factors that can harm it. Pollution is not the only factor that harms the earth. There are wars, terrorism, crimes and many other evils that have more dangerous impacts on the life on earth. We can; rather we must, fight them to guarantee a better life on earth.

Sajjad Uraya is a permanent writer of Daily Outlook. He can be reached at sajjad.urya@gmail.com

Go Top