Everything is wrong because the government does nothing.
Thats our reaction to, and way and extent of dealing with issues that we come face to face with, and having done this, continuing whatever it is we were doing earlier.
The environment is not the government's responsibility. Its ours. We wither encourage, or let the government do certain things and so they happen. We clamour for better roads because we collectively have faster, better, more driving as a goal we've acquired from our trips to the western world, and want to see that here.
The GoI has implemented a whole lot of laws for controlling pollution, protecting forests, etc.
We - citizens - homeowners, industrial stakeholders, consumers, car drivers, etc - try our damndest to maintain status quo and not disturb things unless it has a direct positive material impact on our lives.
The BMTC has improved bus services manifold, both in terms of quantity and quality. Yet we continue forwarding one excuse or the other to avoid giving up on our perception of "convenience" in our own cars. Inertia is dearer to us than the condition of the species and the planet going forward.
We ape bad retail habits we have seen in the west merely because they seemed cool there, and we are too shy/lazy to stand out refusing plastic to put each individual vegetable purchase into before getting it weighed at our malls. Blame the government for that too ?
Sure these are small steps, but there's little hope of evolving the right collective goals, pushing the government towards real positive change, etc, from a population thats by and large content living off unsustainable behaviour for short term gains, and considering finger pointing as adequate contributiuon.
Somewhere, I fear the future will treat us with irritated scorn and incredulous disbelief for our shortsightedness.
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2 comments:
Right On!
the other day there was this so called educated/high society people throwing out a polythene bag from their moving car. These are the same people who complain of dirt and the GOI/BBMP etc etc not doing there job.
Many people including friends and family are guilty of this, talking to them gives me this idea that we have this attitude of "Not My Problem". We need fundamental change in attitude towards living.
While you are right on individuals leading the way, the leverage that government(or any leadership role in any organization) is far more than a group of individuals. For example, I ensure that I should be able to take my bag inside any shopping mall to buy stuff, but then most of the things I buy are already packaged in plastic, which is not convenient to reuse as well. But if government bans packing food in plastic and ban plastic carry bags in all shops, it has a huge impact. So the problem as I see is that, individual efforts are just few drops in an ocean, whereas government actions would have larger and significant impact. So IMO, it is both the individual and the government. May be some day the individuals concerned may be able to influence Government into action, but that day may be a bit too late, in fact it is too late already. But like in everything, the most influence I have is on myself and I am trying to do my bit.
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