Would you rather be living with your surroundings being an eyesore than one that's pleasing? Are the sights of rubbish on the riverside or thick, black smoke from the burning of trash pleasant sights to behold? Wouldn't you rather see rivers running free, seas blue till the horizon, untouched by pollution and the greedy doings of man? The environment has a place in my heart, for I believe that without it, I wouldn't be who I am today. I think you too would find it hard to be all cheery with industrial chimneys being just a glance out the window away. We simply cannot allow pollution to run rampant in our country. From the extinction of the dodo bird, we know that a species can one day just disappear from the face of the Earth, never to be seen again. What if the same fate were to befall on the orang utan, or tapir? The next generation will not be able to fully appreciate them. Pollution is already affecting aquatic life, God knows when land creatures will be gravely endangered by an unbearable level of pollution someday. That's where we come in.
Carpooling. It has been brought up many times before, carpooling can reduce the release of harmful gases into the atmosphere and also decrease the utilization of fossil fuels. How many people actually take that seriously and more importantly, put it into practice? People are still seen driving SUV's with the driver being the only one transported. Therefore, once the time comes for me to obtain my driver's licence, I pledge to offer carpooling to outings like watching a movie at the cinema, so that they need not drive and defile the air. For now, I carpool with people or just walk, if the destination is of minute distance.
Recycling is another way we can contribute to the preservation of Mother Earth. Instead of crushing those beer cans with your head and chucking them into the trash during New Year's Eve, why not crush them nice and flat, then chuck them into a recycling bin? Old newspapers, plastic and glass bottles have their place after they have served their purpose, and it is not in the rubbish bin. If paying a visit to the recycling center seems too much a stretch, you can always reuse those objects to serve another purpose. Plastic bottles can make good substitutes for pots to plant with. Newspaper could be reused for art, a paper-mâché Petronas Twin Towers, perhaps? That makes recycling and reusing my second pledge to the environment.
Environmental campaigns like the recent 'Earth Hour' have their sights set on the reduction of energy usage. Millions of people turned off their lights for a full hour to show their concern towards the environment. Though it is agreeable that the act of shut down for that period of time did not cause any significant change in worldwide energy usage, the idea is indeed one that should be credited. Logically, if all seven billion of us (most of that number, at least) were to have good habits like turning off the lights after leaving a room and turning off the power to electrical appliances after use, we would definitely have a greener, less energy consuming world. I pledge to abide to that lifestyle.
What are those little bits of black in the sky? What smells like burning plastic? Burning plastic, of course. Imagine you busy surfing the internet, suddenly your nose catches the stench of an oppressive odour. You go outside and look over your fence and what do you see? Your neighbor watching his trash in flames while he pokes around it with a stick. Definitely not a favorable sight, indubitably a very unpleasant smelling situation. Furthermore, it does not do the environment any good as well. I pledge to never do this or do it in my yard.
Lastly, agriculture. My grandfather is a farmer, but he is more to the animal farming sort rather than planting. That means he doesn't use/seldom uses pesticides or chemical fertilizers like those farmers who have large farms for big business purposes. Those pesticides do more than just kill insects and rodents, it decreases soil biodiversity and it can flow to nearby rivers and pollute them, killing aquatic life. The same can be said for fertilizers, except without the effect on biodiversity. Should I ever become a farmer next time, I pledge not to use those or at least use it at a very small amount.
