Taking Green beyond a mere colour : Reducing themes to slogans
- Sangai Express Editorial :: June 06, 2013 -

Time to take slogans like, "Go Green," "Live Green", "Think Green" beyond the understanding of a colour or colours.

For 40 years, that is since 1973, the World Environment Day has been observed under different themes and the one constant has been the word Green.

Green activism as a term has become fashionable but the disturbing and yet at the same time interesting point is, in the last 40 years there is nothing much to suggest that dedicating a day to save the environment or spread awareness amongst the people has had any positive impact.

On the contrary, climate change, global warming, unseasonal rains etc have entered the lexicon of the people increasingly. A sure sign that something needs to be done more and fast at that.

Manipur too joined the rest of the world in observing the day with NGOs, Government agencies and other institutions organising seminars, panel discussions, workshops, taking the campaign to the educational institutions and while such efforts are enough indications that slowly but gradually the people have woken up to the need to save the environment from further degradation, it has remained at that stage, 'woken up' but with nothing much to show that it is awake to the issue.

A sure sign that like most of the important dates kept aside to address issues confronting mankind, the expiry date of the World Environment Day is just one day. Nothing more.

Think Global, Act Local, is perhaps one of the most appealing and practical slogans coined by the champions of environment protection and if people walk a little more to meet the underlying meaning of this slogan, then something positive would have surely come out.

The message is simple enough. No need to think of what is happening in distant Europe or America or even the neighbouring countries. Just think and do something about the immediate local surrounding.

Think and do something about the local khongbans that pass through the lanes and by lanes of every leikai and leirak.

Think and do something about the piling plastics in and around Imphal and the clogged drainage. Just give a thought on how a slight drizzle can cause a flood on the roads of Imphal.

This should be the essence of observing the World Environment Day, guided and understood by the slogan, Think global, act local.

Think. Eat. Save. Not at all a tall order to follow.

Think about what is being done to the environment by the action of each individual, by the very action of using plastic carry bags and dumping it inside the drains.

Eat, but with the realisation that what is eaten has a direct impact on the environment and hence select what one eats.

In other words select foods that have less of an environmental impact, such as organic foods, choose to buy locally produced foods and plan meals to avoid wasting, to quote from an article written by the Acting Consul General, US Consulate General, Kolkata, Mr Jeffrey Reneau and which was published in the June 5 edition of this paper.

Save. In short, stop food wastage, for wasting food means more pressure on the earth to produce more food which has a direct impact on the environment. Should not be too tough a proposal, if only the people apply their minds to it.

Unfortunately this is a line of thought which is yet to catch on with the general public of Manipur, where over loading one's plate and throwing away the left overs has become a status statement and a fashion. As things stand today, June 5 would have become just another date, a date on which the World Environment Day was observed.

It is this trend, a culture which may be responsible for the 40 years of observing this day not having much of a positive impact on the environment the world over.

The politics of development, as understood in the mad race to meet the interest of each country is another manifestation of each theme of the day being reduced to sloganeering with nothing much to show at the end of the day.