Wake up call : Keep Mother Earth Genuine not Plastic by Mary Krianne Athene Bitancor-Hernando

The pandemic issues have flooded the whole world that drew much attention by almost everyone young and old alike. The issues focused more on statistics featuring the countdown of the number of people infected by the virus, death toll, and ranking countries who got the most and least number of cases. This has been over a year since the issues became viral that perhaps we got so overwhelmed making these issues control us in many ways. But, is the pandemic all that matters now in our life? Are we to forget all other matters that concerns our life, and the future of the world, especially us, the youth? For me, saving our lives from the pandemic is important but saving our lives from the distraction of the life giving environment, our dear mother earth is equally important.

 

We now live in a society who cares little about nature today and it saddens me to see that what our ancestors have handed to us as our dwelling place to live and enjoy like the mountains, the rivers, the lakes and many more now turned into skyscrapers as dwelling places for some who are rich, malls, and garbage disposal because of our trashes. We continue to cut trees to build and again for the rich to use in decorating their expensive homes. These are but a few of the many sins we are committing against the earth we call our mother. We learn in school about climate change including its causes and effects and we realize that we are contributing so much and its causes and slowly its effect begin to threaten our lives day after day. With these, should we just seat in the corner of our homes and simply wait for the events to come as how we waited for the pandemic to spread like fire? The most recent scientific assessments have confirmed that these warming of the climates system since the mid 20th century is most likely to be due to human activities; and thus, is due to the observe increase in greenhouse gas concentration from human activities, such as the burning of fossil fuels and land use changes it. The things we use every day come in plastic packaging of the products, pollution of the water bodies due to the factories that down their ways in them and many more of man-made pollutants keep us closer to that danger zone should not be state of climate emergency we declared too? But who has the power to these if not our government leaders. Again, this will not end here. We, ourselves must do our part. We must remember that a “ help population begins with a healthy environment, and scientist around the world had warn that unless we take better care of our planet,  we are of even deadliest virus emerging” according to the emirates environmental group.

 

Taking care of the earth is the duty of every human being. Our planet is our home and we should take care of as if it were our own mother. Didn’t we call the earth,  our mother? We know that mothers are sources of almost everything for a child like us to live and survive. From our basic needs to food and many more. Unfortunately, modernization made a negative impact on our habits and attitudes that we are slowly forgetting what our ancestors have been doing to preserve mother earth. We are so excited about doing things instantaneously and continue to look for comfort that in the end we realize that these comfort brings us to something that endangers our lives.

 

If only we can change our attitudes and bad habits to stop mother earths destruction, then the world will be a better place to live for everybody

 

To my mind, our situation is not hopeless if only each one makes his own contribution no matter how little it may be. We can start where we are right now, right in our own homes by managing our wastes well. Waste segregation has become tiresome, because we want to spend more time with video games or the internet. We waste so much water in many of our daily activities because we are used in being extravagant. We can start conserving energy. We have little care about planting plants for a fresh looking environment and as source of vegetables to nourish our bodies. The pandemic made us all stay at home so we can plant vegetables for no fear to go out and buy them. These and many more could be done. Its unfortunate that we have developed this unfriendly attitude and habit that is now putting mother earth into a dying condition.

 

As I was writing this reflection, I was glad to have encountered through the internet, the Earth Day organizations plan to celebrate this year the Earth Day on April 20 to 22 and wrote that “Together, We can prevent the coming disasters of climate change and environmental destruction. Together, We can restore our Earth”, which is this years theme. What really struck me is their plan of 3 days of climate action which will begin with a global youth climate summit featuring todays youth activist with speeches and special messages, a virtual summit where a digital event will examine climate and environmental justice, connecting the climate crisis to issues of pollution, poverty, police brutality and the pandemic. At last, we have awaken and now start answering to our dear mother earths call! It’s a wishful thinking that we, the youth could all attend this summit.

 

 

As what our Pope John Paul II quoted “ The earth will not continue to offer its harvest,  except with faithful stewardship. We cannot say we love the land and then take steps to destroy it for use by future generations. “ we should all be watchful and prayerful, for god so love the world. let us make a change for our mother earth.

 

LET OUR GENERATION TAKE THE MOVE TO KEEP MOTHER EARTH FOREVER GENUINE NOT PLASTIC.!!!