Fight for our environmental future

As a kid, I have always been in a bubble of family and friends. Even after going through my college, staying away from my parents and then getting married and staying with my husband, I still feel I have been in a bubble oblivious of world problems. As part of one of our modules at my Fashion design course at Pearl Academy, "The Social Responsibility", we went through series of videos to understand the environmental issues and the fight different people have been fighting over the years and it was a real eye opener for me.

Our world is facing a lot of critical issues, and that is a fact no one can deny. It is just that we need to start caring about it. Learning more about how youth of today is fighting for our future is inspiring. Youngsters like Malala Yousafzai and Greta Thunberg are chasing global issues like Right to education for all children and Climate Change and fighting against some of the leaders of the world to be heard at global stage. It is oftne that people ask what can a single person do if they intend to do something about a global issue. These young girls are showing us the way that each and every one of us matters, we can all bring about a change in the whole world. Malala was even awarded the Nobel peace Prize, an award which was only honored on world leaders like Dalai Lama, Kofi Annan, Barack Obama previously, there by showing us we can get heard at global stage if we take up any issue with the right spirit.

One of the documnentaries we saw was around the "Sunrise movement" led by the 26 year old Varshney Prakash in United States. They are a group of young people trying to raise awareness in the youth to fight for their future. They tell us that we have only 12 years to take unprecedented steps to radically change the way we look at our environment. We need to start looking towards renewables, reduce carbon footprint, make corporates around the world responsible for their actions, make politicians aware of their responsibilities towards the public, to make them aware of the result of their inactions on the future generations. Sunrise is trying to create momentum towards "Green New Deal" to start projects for renewable energy. Although, they got shot down int he US senate because of lack of support from majority "Republicans", they have full support from most of the democrats and are hopefully of the resolutions being passed next year after required improvements in the resolution. They have actons of value like trying to lobby the politicians against the fossil fuel companies successfully.

They have been criticised for wanting too much, too quickly but history shows that radical changes are brought about by radical actions, be it equal voting rights for women in Britain in 1920s or equal right to employment, voting and housing for all americans including african americans in 1960s. Groups like extinction rebellion in UK are trying to make the public aware of their actions, that we are killing our children everyday by not caring and taking responsibility of our actions. They are trying to communicate the seriousness of the issue by protesting on streets, even willing to be arrested for it. By successfully getting the UK parliament to declare a climate and ecological emergency, they forced the leaders of the country to tell the truth to the common man. Movements like this can propel countries across the world to follow the example and accept the truth and finally start taking actions to salvage the situation while we can. People's voice is rising and taking the world to a better place. It is in our hands to destroy or save our planet.