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We are myopic and I'm not only talking about our eyesight.
It's not only our eyes but our minds that are shortsighted. For the most part, people seem unable to understand how our longing for short term happiness affect us as a human or the planet in general in the long term.
Think about it, in smaller contexts. We will procrastinate on studying for an exam, we will find it easier to stay in home on a day to vote, we will deforest an area to build a community, we will fight wars for the most valuable commodity: oil that fuels our very existential lifestyle.
Rings a bell? Let me break it down for you.
Today, we are depleting what is left of the earth at a rate faster than ever before. We have managed to pollute the air and made air purifiers to sell, we loved bubble bath so much that we made lakes of toxic foam, land are deforested, our ecosystem is in a mess and yes, climate change is real.
"The ironic thing is that we are the only specie that has power to alter our environment immensely to make it unliveable and we are doing exactly that."
The most profound thing is to see the world changing in front of my eyes. I remember how my locality looked when I moved in here a decade ago. There were less houses, the sky was clearer to the point where it was my routine to stargaze each night, driving to the nearest restaurant was a fun outing and I did not feel suffocated. Fast forward to the present, my house is literally jammed with several other houses, the pollution in the city has been termed as one of the deadliest in the world. A 15 min drive is now an hour long, thanks to the never ending traffic and forget stars, I'm lucky if I even get to see the clouds in bright daylight.
We have cut down our trees only to build a concrete jungle to live in.
Why?
According to science, we have been wired to be shortsighted. We can only truly understand what we are able to experience, so the longest stretch of time that we are able to wrap around our head is approximately about 80 years, which is nothing relative to the time our earth has existed and will continue to do so. Having said that, we are great when it comes to micro managing our time in the present.
In the corporate world, all of our work is planned and scheduled down to the last minute. Preference is given to speed despite the accuracy and ah, how being busy is a blessing! This mentality has usher us to our downfall.
Speedy is being greedy. You basically neglect planning and focus on short term gains instead of how it's going to affect in the long run.
Cars are a population innovation but who would have thought that this human bubble would be capable of deforesting millions of acres to clear land for roads and highways, will lead countries for wars for oil and would emit nothing but only more cough cough smoke cough cough cough . This is a perfect example of how we didn't think about it before but kept on producing at an extend that there are now more cars than people in the world! Think about that.
It's sad to see how we are misusing our powers to destroy the only thing we have.
Looking at the present situation, it's evident that a new source of energy is needed which is both clean and reliable and what is better than solar energy? Although setting up the solar panels is an expensive feat, the rewards reaped are immeasurable.
Another important thing is how we dispose our waste. It's important to ensure that we as corporates don't dump our toxins into the air or the sea where it contaminates the ecosystem in a way which is irreversible. Recycling should be the jargon and reusing, the common way of reducing most wastage.
Take a carpool to work, use more jute products, support your local communities and farmers by buying more fresh produce than relying completely from the supermarkets. These all are so small yet such significant steps when they add up.
We do not have to wait for our government to impose their eco friendly policies on us. Change starts from one of us. Although we tend to focus more on our own individual problems, the health of the planet is our responsibility. Each of us must work to pass on this beautiful planet to our future generations.
We are powerful enough to affect our fate, let's make it on a positive side.
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