Blog Action Day

October 15th is Blog Action Day. On this day, more than 15000 bloggers all around the world would write their views on the environment. This could be anything - from new technology to create a cleaner and healthy surrounding, to avoiding some things that you have been doing to make this world a better place.

In a developing country like ours, we cannot afford to let the environment go to the dogs. But what can you say or what can you do - the sheer number of people around you are perhaps the problem. America is clean and clear because there are less than 400 million people for a land mass that is almost the size of India or perhaps more too. And we are just proud of having more than a billion. On the other hand, China, having a population as much as ours, is getting ahead in no time.

Before you address the environment, its important that you address WHY THE ENVIRONMENT? To get an answer to that, we'll have to work on education. Everybody needs access to a school which would teach them about working towards protecting the society they are part of. That's when they will realise. there is no point in telling people not to use plastic bags when we are not investing in an alternative - right? Its the same thing here. If we need people to follow something, then we'll need to facilitate the same. They always say - put the people first.

You might just argue - what about the people who are already educated. They themselves are doing things that are causing environmental damage. This is just a vicious circle. First of all, we do not have strict laws that protect the environment. Even if you claim that there are a few laws, the other problem is that we do not have people to enforce these laws. The people to policeman ratio is pretty bad in our country. There are more people who say - WHY SHOULD I CARE. Someone will fix it. With such elements, its difficult. Sometimes I strongly feel that we need a one party rule in India - like its in China or how it was in Germany. In such situations, rules will be rules. They will not bend to become policies. The same educated lot, when they go the US or Singapore to work, ensure that they dont do anything of the sort they do in their home country. WHY - its only that FEAR FACTOR. A fear that they will get caught and that will be the end. Over here, the attitude is - who cares, nobody is there to question. So yes, we'll need to get a bit of that fear here too. Maybe we'll have to introduce incentives to enforcement agencies for helping to protect the environment - like collect the fine from the individual and provide a share of that to the enforcer and the rest to the government. This way, people wouldnt even dream of violating a rule.

In a huge country like ours, we need investment to protect the environment. for that we'll need money. and money comes only if the system has revenues. and we know that most of the money that is available, gets squandered.

so here comes the bottomline: if every government employee and member of state just takes home only his or her salary and nothing else, then the system will have enough funds.

every home should grow atleast one tree. we know that we cant depend on the council to plant tress on the road. so its better we do it on our own.

if you have open space at the back of your house, then create a dumping pit for the biodegradable waste. atleast the soil there becomes fertile enough to grow more trees.

oh my god.. what have i written?