Many people think it is important to protect the environment, but they make no effort on it themselves. Why is it and what is your opinion?

It is irrefutable that environmental damage is occurring at a very fast pace and people know that it is a global priority today to save the environment. However, when it comes to doing something, no one steps forward. In this essay I intend to delve into the causes of this phenomenon and suggest simple measures which can be taken at the individual level.

There are many reasons behind the indifferent attitude of people. The main reason is that we people don’t know that we are also the cause of environmental damage. We don’t realise that global warming is the result of billions of decisions. We are cutting down trees for our needs; we are using too many luxuries in the home; we are driving too many cars and we are wasting resources like fresh water. If only awareness is brought about these things then many people would take a step forward in this direction.

People are also not doing anything because they think that it is a global problem and only government action can solve it. What has to be made clear is that small measure taken at the individual level will take mammoth dimensions when mounted up. For example, in a country like India with a population of more than one billion, if each person plants a tree and nurtures it for the first few months, the result would be un-imaginable. We can all take simple steps like recycling things such as newspapers, plastics and glass. We could also walk for short distances instead of using our vehicles and for long distances we could use the public transport.

Another reason why people do little about the environment is that people have become very busy in their pursuit of wealth and fame that they have no time to think about the environment. What they don’t realise that if nothing is done today, it might be too late tomorrow. The rate at which global warming is occurring would soon transform the Earth into a boiling pot and it would be un-inhabitable for us one day.

To put it in a nutshell, I pen down saying that the onus of saving the environment is not just on the shoulders of the governments and big industries. We all must come forward and do our bit to save the environment before it is too late. It has rightly been said –“little drops of water, little grains of sand, make the mighty ocean and the vast land”