A perfect October morning. The air was cool and crisp and without the din and hustle of the daily chores. As I walked my way towards the institute I couldn’t help admire the surrounding beauty. But my joy was short-lived. As soon as I entered the campus, I could see a cloud of dust rising in the horizon accompanied by the shrill whining sound of a motorized machine. Being a sinus-troubled person, it was an ominous sign for me. As I approached the “crime scene”, the picture became clearer. Another early-riser was diligently performing his duty of cleaning the campus library area of fallen leaves and dust and was using the latest mechanized tools to do this noble task. I somehow managed to cross the area without sneezing myself to glory. As I approached my lab building another event caught my eye. The pedestrian walkway was being watered. Watered!!! And that too in a water-scarce region of the country!!!
Not only did these events cause a rude awakening from the ethereal experience of the surroundings but also left me thinking about the success of ameliorating the adverse climate change and water scarcity on this planet. As long as people substitute raw manpower with fossil fuels for their daily and trivial chores and use scarce resources to make their surroundings aesthetically pleasing, all efforts to curb global emissions and conserve water will fail miserably. If the events mentioned above can happen in one of the most eco-friendly places in the world then I cannot fathom the possibilities in other regions of the world.
Instead of wasting precious resources in organizing concerts to save the planet that only a select few can attend, money would be wisely spent in educating people across all strata and making them realize their stake in helping sustain the only habitable place in the universe.