Plan@earth campaign in Kochi as part of Global climate week

September 23, 2009

planet earth Nobody can change the world, but if each can contribute a small bit, it will go a long way – Plan@earth stressed over and over on this motto. The group believes in actions that speak more than words. Suggestions and initiatives to prevent global warming, put forth by them are simple and easy to follow. For instance, switch off vehicles in traffic jams, switch off the TV at the plug, switch off the PCs when not it use rather than keeping them in stand by mode, and switch off cellphone chargers as soon as phones are charged.

As part of the latest campaign of Plan@earth, the group was at St Teresa’s College on Tuesday. Signature campaign, carbon club opening for the college and the observing of a ‘go green day,’ a ‘vegetarian day’ and a ‘paper collection day’ every month are among the initiatives of the group. September 21 to 25 was declared as Global climate week by UN and so the campaign was held as part of it. The impact of global warming was shown to students through a series of amazing audio visual presentations. One such presentation was the cutting down of trees in large scale for making paper. In our country, only newspapers and notebooks are recycled. Are you aware of the fact that one ton of recycled paper can save no less than 17 trees?

The group also performed a dance demonstrating the importance of not leaving waste in public places. Bamboo seeds (bamboos being the most effective carbon sink) were distributed for free to students at the end of the seminar. As of now the group is planning to visit more colleges to bring awareness among the students about global warming and also to collect the 10,000 signatures needed for the campaign. Another major pollutant is thermocol, which is much worse than plastic as it cannot be recycled easily. And so the group is planning to file the signed petition to the High Court requesting it to regulate, or ban the use of thermocol. Lets hope something will come out of this. We cannot stop what’s happening, all we can do is ‘do our bit’ and slow it down.