Saving Mother Earth

Planet Earth. It is our one and only home, at least until we find another planet that can sustain life in another corner of the cosmos. But that is far, far away in both distance and time and our best option at the moment is to protect the planet we already have. That is the core message of Earth Day (formally called International Mother Earth Day) which is celebrated worldwide today.

The Earth is facing peril on several fronts. Last year has already entered the record books as the hottest year in recent memory, which debunks the notion that climate change is a fallacy. We are consuming the Earth’s resources at a furious rate, exploiting its minerals and cutting down forests. The gases emitted by vehicles and factories are poisoning our atmosphere and lungs. Thousands of flora and fauna species face the threat of extinction within our lifetimes. There will be a freshwater scarcity in many parts of the world in the coming years. Action must be taken now to arrest these damaging trends.

The world has been slow to respond to the emergencies posed by global warming and the damage caused to the planet. Fortunately, Governments around the world has woken up to this reality. This year, Earth Day (first marked in 1970) coincides with the signing ceremony for the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, which will take place at UN Headquarters in New York. The Agreement was adopted by all 196 Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change at COP21 in Paris on 12 December 2015. In the agreement, all countries agreed to work to limit global temperature rise to well below 2 degrees Celsius, and to strive for 1.5 degrees Celsius.

This year’s theme “Trees for Mother Earth” could not have been more timely and relevant. Trees – and forests - are precious resources that are literally facing the axe. The world’s rain forests could completely vanish in a hundred years at the current rate of deforestation. Nearly half of the world’s forests have been lost. Indonesia has the world’s highest rate of deforestation, even higher than Brazil, which contains most of the Amazon rainforest. Forests absorb excess and harmful CO2 from our atmosphere and when forests are cleared, they emit CO2 back into the atmosphere. Deforestation accounts for about 11% of global greenhouse gas emissions caused by humans — comparable to the emissions from all vehicles on Earth combined. In fact, in a single year, an acre of mature trees absorbs the same amount of CO2 produced by driving an average car 42,000 Km.

Replanting trees is thus a crucial need to offset this massive loss of forest cover. Trees reverse the impacts of land degradation. They provide food, energy, and income. Trees help communities achieve long-term economic and environmental sustainability. They filter the air and help stave off the effects of climate change both globally and locally. They are a natural and long-lasting safety buffer to extreme weather events such as hurricanes and floods. Trees absorb odors and pollutant gases (nitrogen oxides, ammonia, sulfur dioxide and ozone) and filter particulates out of the air by trapping them on their leaves and bark. They also help counteract the loss of species and provide habitat connectivity between forest patches. The elephant corridors in Sri Lanka and elsewhere are a good example. Incidentally, Sri Lanka also has done well in terms of forest cover, which is at around 29-30 percent.

Anyone can plant a tree. It costs next to nothing, but a few years down the line a tree becomes a lifeline to all life. In fact, the UN and the Earth Day Network has set a goal of planting 7.8 billion trees by 2020, the 50th anniversary of the first Earth Day celebration, equaling the current population of the Earth. This seems like a huge number, until the realization dawns that if everyone on Earth planted at least one tree now, it would not even take four years to reach this goal. Teachers and parents must take the lead in this regard, teaching the value of trees to children and encouraging them to plant trees. This should not be difficult in a country like ours, which has ample greenery all around.

Earth Day is also an ideal opportunity to make a bigger commitment to renewable energy. Fossil fuels will run out soon in any case. The recent energy crisis experienced by Sri Lankans is a testimony to the danger of relying on fossil fuels in the long term. As a tropical country, we are ideally placed and poised to take advantage of renewable sources of power such as solar and wind and being an island, even ocean wave energy. This will enable us to harness nature’s energy without harming the most precious resource of them all – Planet Earth.