Go Green

Mahatma Gandhi once said: Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s need,
but not every man’s greed.

I remember when I used to be a kid, my teacher always tells me to behave in

the world. He taught me: not to fight with others, to work things out, to
respect others, to clean up our mess, not to hurt other creatures, to share and
not be greedy.

As a kid, I’m bewildered. I mean, why are they, the adults go out and do all the
things they tell me not to do?

Literally, why? Isn’t this the cause of wildlife extinction? Isn’t this the reason
we couldn’t stay under the sun? Seriously, even after acknowledging the
consequences of pollution, what have we done?

Go Green, a concept that has been underrated since the day it was born.
Basically, going green means to live life, as an individual as well as a
community, in a way that is friendly to the natural environment and is
sustainable for the Earth.

If we are deeply concerned about suicide bombing in Israel which killed

thousands of lives, why shouldn’t we worry about pollution that has been
taking millions? Well, we were not aware. If not, we are just lazy to take action,
to go green.

Well, the first step towards living a more planet conscious life is to be
environmentally conscious. People should think before they buy and bin,
and emphasize on the 3 R’s, reduce, reuse, recycle. Not only that it saves
energy, it also helps to reduce pollution and the need for landfill.

Let’s take a closer look at one of the latest news. According to Strait Times, a
total of 475 educational institutionsion in Pasir Gudang were closed for three
days from 25 June due to air pollution that caused more than 100 students
from over 30 schools to fall ill. Even worse, this was the second time in three
months that the authorities had ordered all schools in Pasir Gudang district to
be closed due to pollution.
“It must be the factories fault”, that’s what we would say. But why? Obviously,
we must stop ravaging the planet with over-consumption. The reason why
over production exists is because of over consumption. But of course, if you
think 3 million kilograms of safe food being thrown away daily is normal, you
may play the blame game. Not just food, energy conserved is life preserved.
Switch off the power button when no one is in the room. Minimize personal
vehicles usage by using public transportation or bicycles for small distances.
Trust me, even these small acts of conservation can go a long way.

Nevertheless, sometimes the easiest way to solve a problem is to stop

participating in the problem. I’m only a teenager and I don’t have all the
solutions, but I want you to realize, neither do you!

I mean, you don’t know how to fix holes in our ozone layer. You don’t know
how to bring salmon back up a dead stream. You don’t know how to bring back
an animal now extinct and you can’t bring back forests that once grew where
there is now desert.

But the past is the past. We must stop playing the blame game and start
focusing on solving the current environmental problems by Going Green. These
efforts may seem small, but it has been said that something as small as the
flutter of a butterfly’s wing can cause a typhoon halfway around the world.
Let’s take a stand for the love of green as we are not apart from nature but
rather a part of nature.