Mother Nature has always provided humanity with endless resources, yet humans have never respected it and always taken it for granted. Nature has been providing us with all essential things, be it water, rain, sunlight, oxygen, shelter, or whatnot. In short, nature is the solution to all problems faced by humanity. All we need to do is end the human race from demolishing to further killing nature. The process of protecting the environment is called conservation. Thus, all these bestowed resources on the planet make life worth living on Earth.
The motive of conserving nature is based on protecting ecological/ biological diversity, improving the ecosystem, maintaining and restoring habitats, and protecting endangered species from extinction. As we human beings stepped onto the planet earth, we began in the pursuit of our comfort and luxury disregarding the consequences it caused. Our ancestors started utilizing natural resources for the good of themselves.
The early humans opted for hunting and fishing until farming was invented, as time passed humans advanced from the dark age to the stone age and further on imperial age and currently, we are living in the Meghalayan age (as said by geologists). But as humans transformed from early ages, they also created many hazardous inventions that are for the environment, and as we have seen these manly activities have an adverse effect on the planet Earth as we call Climate Change.
The main causes of climate change are the emission of greenhouse gases which wrap around the Earth’s atmosphere trapping the harmful UV rays directly incident to the Sun. These UV rays are causing the largest reservoirs of fresh water to melt in the blink of an eye i.e., melting of the glaciers. Also, we have seen a much more intensive summer every year and the same goes for the winters, summers are getting hotter, and winters are getting colder.
Deforestation is another major cause of climate change, people look at it as just cutting down trees for wood that is used for paper, furniture, or fuel. But a tree is home to many organisms like birds and various kinds of small animals thus deforestation causes a huge disperse of the habitat of these organisms, we have seen how the animal kingdom is on the verge of extinction. The bushfires in Australia in the months of December and January 2020- “killed or harmed 3 billion animals” although the bush bushfire started because of dry lightning, it was also due to climate change.
It is reported that 15 billion trees are cut down each year, if we do not overcome this issue of deforestation then it will be extremely difficult for humans to survive on the planet because trees are natural air purifiers and especially important for the ecosystem once trees are gone, the whole ecosystem will collapse.
The first gasoline engine was invented in 1885 and fast-forward to 2022 still the major transport of the world is dependent on fuel consumption engines. The lead through the exhaust of such engines is causing various diseases of the lungs as well as causing harm to the environment. It is however a ridiculously huge problem for major cities of the world where air quality is getting worse because most of the transportation is achieved by burning fuel.
Manufacturing Industries without proper check and vigilance are emitting harmful gases and waste material which are causing air-land pollution as well. The emitted gases make a great contribution to the release of harmful gases, i.e., Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. These industries and electricity-generating power plants are causing more than 50 percent of greenhouse gases combined. Another harmful emitted gas is Sulphur dioxide which results in acid rain.
We have seen many weapons of mass destruction, most commonly known as nuclear warheads, and almost all the major countries of the world are in possession of nuclear weapons. The modern warfare around the globe and the wars in the past have caused great destruction to the world as we have seen the dropping of nuclear bombs twice by the USA on Japan in World WarII but those bombs still have their effects on those cities and people of those cities.
There are many other factors and causes of pollution of the environment like plastics, dumping of oil in the sea, etc, which should be reduced to zero because they are quite common, such as the use of plastics, instead of plastic bags or plastic items we should use alternatives that are eco-friendly and biodegradable. The most basic practice that everyone can do is to avoid plastic products and stop carrying plastic bags.
There are organizations like World Wildlife Fund WWF, working in conserving nature and also protecting endangered species all around the world. The organizations like WWF are coming forward after realizing that the problems facing our planet are increasingly more complex and urgent, and they try to challenge the planet’s greatest threats and ensure a healthy future for people and nature.
A YouTuber Mr. Beast started fundraising known as TeamSpeak. The fundraiser succeeded in raising over 30 million U.S. dollars. The donations from the fundraising go to the Ocean Conservancy and Ocean Cleanup. The fundraiser pledges to remove 30,000,000 pounds (14,000,000 kg) of marine debris from the ocean by removing 1 pound of marine debris from the ocean for every 1 dollar donated. As of June 5, 2022, $32,749,052 has been raised.
The same Youtuber also started fundraising known as TeamTrees in 2019 it raised 20 million USD and planted 22 million trees. The Government of Pakistan planned to plant 10 billion trees by 2023 to overcome the global issue of climate change. This project is called the 10 Billion Tree Tsunami, this project entails both planting and naturally regenerating forests. As of 2021, Pakistan has planted 1 billion trees. Projects and initiatives like these induce people all around the globe to volunteer and do their part in preserving nature.
The writer is a student of Sindh Madressatul Islam University.
