Environmental Consciousness -By Laaro Yussuf Olamilekan

Why you need to be Environmentally Conscious

A higher number of people are living unconsciously in their changing natural environment which is nothing but due to their anthropogenic activities. Many are still living like primitive men in the industrial age we live in today, living without knowing the consequence of their actions on the environment where they dwell. The majority of the mass can be found in some parts of Africa where open burning is a norm.

Looking back at what the natural environment used to be like and how pleasant and comfortable it was, may give us some insight into why we need to care about the environment. Natural Environment encompasses the interaction between the biotic and abiotic components; the biotic component represents living organisms such as plants, animals, humans, etc. While the abiotic component represents the resources in the environment such as water, soil, air, and trees. So, tracing back to the pre-industrial era, one could relate to how badly we’ve exploited many of the resources.

As an African (Nigerian, to be specific), I’ve encountered several deforestations whereby people in a community will cut and burn down a tree for a reason such as land clearage (i.e., to make more space around the area), and after observing for a while, I realized how ignorant they were about the other benefits that the tree was providing other than a shade and cool breeze.

Water management and preservation caught more attention among the other resources because everyone is aware of the importance of water for survival, as all that energizes our body depends on water. In our subconscious mind, we realized living without water will lead to death but we fail to realize that incessant alteration of the natural environment can lead to the mass extinction of many resources and even species like humans, within it.

It’s no more news on how polluted these resources are today, from the air we breathe to the water we drink. The amount of air we take in every day is much more compared to the amount of water we take but such a place with very pure air can only be found in the pre-industrial history books. Due to emissions from factories and vehicles, smoke from open burning, deforestation, etc., the air contains many harmful gases and particles that can spread over long distances, such as ground-level ozone, nitrogen oxide, Sulphur dioxide, and aerosol. Imagine the health effects of inhaling this type of air over and over again! At this point, breathing polluted air is inevitable, but to some extent controllable, and this is also why you should be environmentally conscious. The harmful effects of polluted air are not only limited to human health, but it also affected the natural environment as well; gases carried by air are mixed with greenhouse gases (ozone, carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, etc.) which brings about the greenhouse effect thus, causing global warming.

According to NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), the average global temperature on earth has increased by at least 1.1^oC since 1880. The majority of the warming was said to occur since 1975, at a rate of roughly 0.15 to 0.20 ^oC per decade. Talking of a 1-degree rise in temperature of the Earth is so much unlike that of a body, it is enormous and will be felt even by the smallest particles because it’s been altered from its initial state. All the buildings, bridges, materials, and infrastructure that were built at a certain rate of expansivity will be affected and might even collapse due to the rising temperature which would alter the expansion.

Efforts have been put in place to avert this rising crisis, one of which is the Paris agreement on limiting global warming to about 1.5 to 2.0 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial level. To support this movement and help build a habitable environment for us and the generations to come, we need to stay aware and be conscious of the harmful effect our anthropogenic activities will cause on the environment.

In conclusion, climate change is real and it has nothing to provide the Earth than destruction. It is the individual before the public, we all need to be environmentally conscious and help in making the Paris agreement goal possible. You can start impacting by turning off your bulb when it’s not in use, stopping open burning, planting trees, being an advocate of clean energy, and keeping up the good work.

It’s our environment, we must clean, and make it green.

Thanks for reading through.