Switch off the Fossil Beasts!

Mexico City has come up with the long-awaited suggestion of switching off the car engines and getting to office in bicycles once in a month. People will at least get to know the otherwise invisible impact they and their cars have on the roads. Sidney made history when most of the lights in the Australian city were put off for a while.

Back home, we find even youngsters kick starting their bikes to reach their offices, which, in most cases, is within 2 km. When we talk about the power of youth and the thinking generation, we are nowhere in terms of environment consciousness quotient.

To my dismay, I find so many young people filling their mouth with 'paan' and spitting it willfully all over the way they walk. 8 out of 10 cinemas in India will have paan stained walls and chairs. (I wonder why people don't behave so in multiplexes!)

Drunkards litter pavements and public places as if everything under the sun is their restroom. Smokers paint and taint the by-passers with the white threads of tobacco. Men urinate on walls and nobody walks on the platforms. Slum-dwellers do their 'morning job' alongside the roads. Buses come with stains of smoke as well as sweat, as the ratio seems to be one bus per 150 persons.

What took half an hour to travel 50 years ago takes one and a half hour today, and still we talk about improvements in transportation. Bumper-to-bumper traffic is a common site, with vehicles involved in a war for every square inch available. Bikers add to the woes by snaking through what is locally called the 'cycle gap'.

Where are we heading to?

Let's bend the twig

It's more than proved that 30 year olds will be living in their second world, very unlike the one which used to be while they were born, thanks to the changing weather patterns and climatic conditions. It's high time we drive the point effectively and make the newer generation aware of the world that is waiting for them. Bend the twig, bend the tree, someone has said.

The renowned authors have a task at their hands. It's their moral duty to incorporate ideas that would make the child know how their parents and grandparents spoiled their world, at the same time preventing them from developing hatred towards their previous generations.

Harry potter can do something for the welfare of some endangered species by using his magical powers. Superman, Spiderman and all the supernatural men can save this world from the dangers of global warming by some way or the other(Let's leave it to the imagination of the authors).

Fancy stuff that are easily liked by children can carry messages with a true concern for the environment. We can encourage children to buy things that are certified by a competent authority as manufactured in an eco-friendly manner.

Let's think green.