In recent times, there has been a massive climate change across the globe and activists across the globe have been campaigning to save earth. One among them is Vikrant Karnik, who has adopted a challenging lifestyle and has been visiting every distant village on his bicycle to spread the word. This 50-year-old is on his bicycle to inspire others to save earth.
Karnik's mission is to create awareness about pollution and global warming by not availing the luxuries in life. He undertakes this endeavour by travelling across Maharashtra on bicycle to spread the green message in schools, colleges and rural areas.
Karnik has been spreading on his mission for past one-and-half-year and have visited more than 100 schools and colleges in Raigadh, Poladpur, Nagpur and Vidarbha.
Talking about self-transformation, Karnik shares, "It was a seminar by noted environmentalist Girish Karnik that opened my eyes. He mentioned the harm that we are posing to environment and shared the figure of 600-crore metric tonnes of harmful carbon-di-oxide that we release every year statistically. The amount of pollution in a year matches that of 20,000 years consolidated in past. As I was working as a civil contractor, i was also contributing to the cause so I quit my job and adopted a simple lifestyle.
Karnik said 75 percent of pollution is contributed by cars and two-wheelers. "It was then that I immediately switched to bicycle from motorbike and one cannot raise awareness against pollution by travelling in cars. Our mother earth is sensitive and needs to be protected if we want our future generations to survive," Karnik added.
Karnik highlighted that meteorological laboratory of United Nations is situated a 'Mouna Loa' island in the Pacific Ocean for monitoring and studying the change in earth's climate. "The lab has recently recorded the amount of carbon-di-oxide in earth's atmosphere as 400 ppm (parts per million) because of which temperature of earth is rapidly increasing, resulting in decline in groundwater level, increase in sea levels, loss of bio-diversity and many more disastrous effects."
As per the information obtained from meteorological laboratory, Karnik has tabled a series of incidents that have occurred after May 2013 till May 2014 which includes all the natural calamities across the globe. "There is a need to reduce reuse and recycle. Through my visits, I spread my green message and also asked people to adopt simple lifestyle and minimise the use of gadgets and other appliances that causes pollution."
Last, but not the least, Karnik said the events around the year is a mere preview, we all need to understand that nature is responding and its high time that we should start acting.
