Let us dare to be conscious on how we are ruining our country and the planet

By Suryamithra Vishwa

The world last week saw how a 16-year-old Swedish schoolgirl, Greta Thunberg, jolted powerful world leaders, demanding that they finally wake up to their hypocrisy and stop killing the planet with their non-action and continue to subject humans to the painful end we are witnessing through climatic change triggered disasters happening all over the world. Following are few of her words in her 495-word speech at the 2019 United Nation’s Climate Action Summit last Monday:

“People are suffering. People are dying. Entire eco systems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction and all you can talk about is money and fairytales of eternal economic growth. How dare you? For more than thirty years, the science has been crystal clear. How dare you continue to look away and come here saying that you’re doing enough when the policies and the solutions needed are still nowhere in sight.”

Greta was 15 years when she left her classroom to demonstrate outside the Swedish parliament, calling for stronger action to combat climate change, and triggered the conscience of other students who soon joined her, resulting in the ‘Youth for Climate strike’ international movement which had youth demanding climate justice from their respective country leaders.

What we should all know is that this schoolgirl practiced what she preached. She changed her lifestyle, and influenced her parents to change. She made her parents realise the vast amount of water and land clearing needed for the meat and poultry industry. After adopting a mostly vegan diet she made her parents do so too. She took steps to reduce her own carbon footprint by avoiding air travel. In August she sailed across the Atlantic in a sailboat to travel to the United States to attend the September United Nations Climate Action Summit. 

What can we in Sri Lanka, travelling through towns with thick black smoke being emitted by busses, trishaws and cars, passing daily growing mounds of plastic on roadsides, walking into schools and universities where the ‘educated’ show absolutely zero social responsibility in how they throw their garbage, learn from Greta? What can our elitist NGO activists who spend millions on conferences in posh hotels with little or nothing to show as an end result, learn from this young girl who is the epitome of simplicity and honesty and gives actual meaning to her words, through her actions in her daily life? What can our power hungry, callously corrupt politicians learn from Greta Thunberg? 

The lessons are many. And above all it is the lesson to look at our hypocrisy. We cry about the environment but remain oblivious to the fact that the meat industry plays a big role in deforestation and causes disasters such as forest fires. We have a detailed process of carbon emission testing in Sri Lanka and then anyone who tries to leave zero carbon footprint by cycling or walking faces a nightmarishly chocking experience of being swamped by black fumes because our every policy implementation is netted in corruption, lethargy and inefficiency.

The 2017 ban on plastic in Sri Lanka is yet another mockery with almost every grocery, eatery and supermarket, almost every Sri Lankan, continuing the obsession on wrapping even small items in plastic. Single use plastic cups and cutlery continue to be used and eateries gripped by the lunch sheet mania. Double standard living has unfortunately become the norm to us in Sri Lanka, a country that is proud to call itself ‘Buddhist’ but does little to practice the mindfulness of Buddhism in everyday life, whether by civilians or politicians. 

We have to-date dared to be unconscious and let us now dare to be conscious and be mindful that we are ruining each day, our beautiful country and the planet and all life in it including our own. Let us begin the practices Greta Thunberg began reminding us of. Most importantly let us learn about how the ancestors in our country respected the soil, water, all life and let each of us in word, thought and deed take steps, however small, every day to act with awareness and insight.