Earth Day is an annual event, celebrated on April 22 and events are held worldwide to demonstrate support for environmental protection. It first came about in 1970, and is now coordinated globally by the Earth Day Network and celebrated in more than 192 countries each year.

What is the background of this celebration?

In 1969 at a UNESCO conference in San Francisco, peace activist John McConnell proposed a day to honour the Earth and weave in a concept for peace. Later a separate Earth Day was founded by United States Senator Gaylord Nelson as an environmental teach-in first held on April 22, 1970. It went international in 1990. It was in 1992 in Rio that the climate change treaty was signed. The Earth Day was declared with hope and promise. 25 years seemed a distant post. Over 200 million young Indians of the early 1900s are past their middle age looking toward retirement since then. But nothing has changed. The world’s worse for our indifference.

Where are we heading to?

We continue to mercilessly utilise and deplete Earth’s resources. Our colossal ignorance has begun to cause severe problems like depletion of the ozone layer, death of rivers due to dumping of industrial waste, and global warming. In our quest for industrialisation we’ve stripped our forests. This has devastated Earth’s environment. Polar ice has started to melt due to the rise in Earth’s temperature. 10,000-year-old Monsoon wind patterns have been disrupted in just 50 years. Hailstorms in March in Madhya Pradesh, floods in Bihar yesterday, a wheat shortage which has got India to import wheat in quantities larger than in the 1967 crisis. This is an ominous sign of what is to come.

Some steps that could put the World Earth Day as a reason to see reality....

We must realize the danger and start taking small steps like planting trees, limiting the use of vehicles thereby reducing pollution, switching off lights when unnecessary and also conserving petrol. These might be baby steps but when a billion people do it together, one can definitely see results.

One very good example is the introduction of solar rooftop energy generation. These will reduce the deficit of power, avoid creation of more hydel or nuclear or thermal power plants which are destructive. They considerably reduce the amount of pollution.

Our ‘holy’ rivers are seeing us dump industrial waste for turning them into sewers. Governments and politicians have to bring in stringent laws and rules to make people realise the importance of protecting our natural resources.

Think beyond merely planting trees…

You can celebrate a day such as the World Earth Day by stepping out and picking up new faucets for your bathrooms that cost no more than 600-800 rupees and save you on water flow. A tap at under 6 litres per minute can replace your regular 12 lpm faucet in every bathroom and the kitchen and other places at home.

You can decide to make your home grid-free with a solar installation. You can buy a 5-star pump to replace the sump tank at home which is an energy-guzzler if you have been using it for more than 3 years. You can save up to 10 litres for every flush at home by replacing the old cistern that you have now. You can save up to 100,000 litres a year by the simple expedient of installing water-efficient fixtures alone! Then do away with the old incandescent bulbs and the 40 W tube lights, if you have them still lighting the house. The extra cost can be recovered in less than a year. It is saving all the way for you after that. Just planting a tree will not help.