I do not know why but this word, planet, kind of tickles me in some way. I do not think that it is a joke but I do think that we are making a joke out of it. In school and even to some extent in college I had a subject called environment studies/sciences. They teach you a lot about the planet, the environment, the nature, the life, the harmony between everything with a special focus on resources that are depleting and major disasters, natural or man made, that wrecked havoc where they struck.
We are taught so much of so much in school. Let’s consider a popular subject mathematics, we all know very well that not all of it used in normal life, in my opinion nothing more than the logical aspect of calculations is of any use in daily life of a common man. But they teach us calculus, trigonometry and circles and squares and something called a parallelogram and in all honestly I never had to find the area or perimeter of any such shapes in my life so far except in examinations, which some how were supposed to judge my intelligence and what not. What is this education about?
I am aware that it is very useful even with its compulsions and errors it has helped all of us, but what is the point of making us a part of a learned society if all that we are good at is learning and then fending for ourselves and ending up only consuming and not realising that we have won the survival game now we better sustain it.
Although the onus of taking planet’s care falls on every consumer only education can bring the awareness. But then again they teach “save water, save life” in theory with no practicals. You can not teach someone environment. You can not teach it, you can teach about it and that gets so technical we lose the essence of it.
A planet is a planet. It is a piece of rock in this solar system, ours is pretty colourful though, but it is just a rock with dirt soil (to walk on) and a perfect ozone-blanket (protecting us). And just happens to contain the perfect mixture of gases with oxygen how wonderful! That is exactly what we need.
It has a green cover that moves the blue/clear cover (water), distributes it better than any man-made system in turn allowing other flora and fauna to flourish, some of which becomes food and a lot of it gets used up in various ways resulting in a lot of waste, but with a clear glass of chilled water on a sunny day inside an air conditioned room it is easy to forget that this is not just a planet it is our home. Like every home we need to acknowledge what comes in, what goes out, how much of what gets used, and who contributes back to this bigger home.
Vasudev Kutumbakam (sanskrit)
Translation : The world is one family.
So I guess it is apt to call the planet earth a big home and a side note…. It is not flat LOL.P.S. Keeping with the tone of this post click — Rally For Rivers — for more info about this huge initiative to revive dying rivers in India.
