Saving the Earth must be everyone’s responsibility

A man buying fish asks the shopkeeper for a plastic bag. The shopkeeper looks at the customer and tells him: the plastic is inside the fish! Jokes apart, there have been many instances of people finding plastic in the stomachs of fish and even cows.
Despite the ban on use of single use plastic and awareness sought to be created at the global level, the menace continues to haunt us with plastic piling up in urban and equally in rural garbage. In fact, the theme for the Global Earth Day last year was Plant Versus Plastics with a call for “commitment to end plastics for the sake of human and planetary health, demanding a 60% reduction in the production of all plastics by 2040.”
Every year on April 22, the UN-driven Earth Day is observed to mark the anniversary of the birth of the modern environmental movement in 1970. After 55 years of the launch of the Earth Day, it is time for a reality check.
Each Earth Day comes with a theme, and the theme for this April 22 is , inviting everyone around the globe to unite behind renewable energy, and to triple the global generation of clean electricity by 2030. This is supposed to be achieved by encouraging all to take action—educate, advocate, and mobilize. All nice-sounding words.
In fact, over the past 55 years, we had equally nice sounding themes seeking to inspire the world to take action for the sake of our Earth. Sample these themes of the immediately preceding five years: Plant Versus Plastics, Invest in Our Planet, Restore Our Planet, Climate action and Saving the Planet Starts at Home. Looking at our immediate surroundings, and not deflecting the issues by trying to take a global view, we can safely conclude that the achievements and the results of all these themes are a big zero, much larger than the size of the globe.
I do not say that there has been no awareness at all about the need to protect the Earth, the environment and nature. There has been a lot of talk about it– from the Presidents to Prime Ministers and down to the pedestrians. Everybody wants a good environment but the question is whether anybody is doing anything about it.
There is no dearth of laws but the question is whether they are being implemented in letter and spirit. We may come across an odd surprise check on plastics, or single use plastics for that matter, but we have not been able to eliminate them. I am sure no city or state will come clean if the rankings consider the use of plastics as a criterion.
As one of the Earth Day themes proclaimed that Saving the Planet Starts at Home, the action on any environmental issue also begins at home. It is also about accountability. While launching the M-Cap (Mumbai Climate Action Plan) in March 2022, the then State Environment Secretary had stressed the need to sensitize the officials at the district levels about environmental care. This was in response to my observation during a webinar that the district level officials, including the collectors, do not care about environmental protection. I thought that it was a matter of shame that the officers who get their jobs after passing the national or state public service commissions examinations had to be sensitized on environmental issues. The situation has not changed much ever since.
Without getting into any blame game, I think it is time we started treating the environment (and of course the Earth) as an essential part of our lives along with , health and education. Most of the health issues that we encounter are environment related (apart from the lifestyle). And education -beyond the formal academics – plays a big role in maintaining health and in turn the national productivity. Can we not make environmental studies part of the curriculum from KG to PG? Today, this subject is taught at primary school level and then forgotten forever.
It is also time we became a bit selfish about protecting the Earth. We have heard enough rhetoric -There is No Planet B. And 55 years after launching the Earth Day we cannot be discussing the same old things such as awareness and involvement. It is time for action, and action begins at home – that is from Panchayat to Parliament.
While the Constitution guarantees us the right to clean environment, it is the people’s turn to claim it – be it the issue of pollution in waters or neglecting the impending dangers of the rising sea levels. Recent studies show that as much as 10% of Mumbai will be submerged in the Arabian Sea by 2040. Are we working on disaster management or are we just allowing increased construction into the sea by continuously diluting the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) norms? And then, we are going for seawalls to push back the high tide line in order to save our buildings as if the sea waters will just get stone-walled ().
Let us not even suggest that there is no awareness about the environmental crisis; but it is the care-free or lackadaisical attitude that is worrisome.
Take the Earth Day 2025 theme. There is enough awareness about the need to reduce dependency on fossil fuels but is there any plan at our city level to harness alternative sources of energy? On the contrary, we are accelerating our coal production needed for our thermal plants. In fact, Prime Minister Narendra Modi hailed as a “Proud Moment for India” the country’s coal production crossing the milestone of one billion tonnes.
The way that various proponents – government and private players included – are made to seek environmental clearances and before that get environmental impact assessment studies done makes them have a close look at nature. But do these make them realise the importance of preserving the environment? One doubts, considering the fact that many project proponents and their consultants try to find loopholes in the rules and even hoodwink the regulators such as the State Coastal Zone Management Authorities with fake certificates and records. This is where the importance of making even the regulators accountable arises. Only then, will the laws serve the purpose for which they are passed by the legislature.
Fortunately for the society, there are some environment-focused platforms which keep raising the violations, even at the risk of being branded and trolled as urban Naxals. This is not enough. Environmental protection and conserving the Earth must become a people’s movement. It is now or never.