World Environment Day: 5 Individual Habits that Can Help in the Climate Change

World Environment Day: It’s been so hot this year that climate change is no longer debatable. Recently there was a popular meme doing the rounds on social media that went like ‘It’s not even global warming anymore, it’s global boiling’. We want to say where’s the lie, right? Not just hot, but winters are extremely chilly in some parts of the world, some countries are not witnessing snow as they used to, some tropical places are witnessing snowfall in winter and whatnot. Last year, Delhi was having snowfall in January and Bangalore’s weather was as cool as Shimla’s. This is not funny but serious. It is all a result of human commercialization and consumption. Each of us is responsible for the planet burning and acting weird.

Well, you might be wondering as per our blog’s title, what steps we can take as individuals to help with climate change. Of course, we are here to share some tips that are going to be very simple to adapt to our daily lives and bring a massive change. But, before talking about individual habits, we all need to have a mindset of ‘one man is enough’. If you continue living with a mindset that goes like ‘What difference can I make alone’, you are never going to succeed and also you are very wrong with this notion. The effort by each man counts and we all can do a lot for Mother Earth.

The World Environment Day is a great day to adopt some nice habits and bring a change in the world. We are all capable of doing big things. Now, let’s see some simple habits to indulge in and bring positive changes.

1. Be mindful of the energy consumption at home

Change begins at home and change begins at a personal level. So, of course, when it comes to being mindful of climate change on an individual level has to begin at home and in our workplaces. If we want to be a positive part of the climate change club, we have to be mindful of the energy consumption at our homes. The steps are quite simple to begin with. We can do some simple things like switching off the lights and fans in the rooms when not in use, using one room for ACs and heaters as much as possible, using lesser lights even if there are multiple light sources at our homes, switching to solar appliances, using geysers in one go and not switching it on for every person at different hours, switching off the refrigerators at the night time and keeping the food inside the freezer, and things like these. These will help to reduce the carbon footprints that each house leaves on the planet. Along with this, it will also have a direct benefit to us in the form of less energy/electricity bills. Using renewable sources of energy in your buildings can also bring a major change to the planet.

2. Consider the 4 R’s

This is something we have been taught since our school days and mostly we kept this into practice only for our lessons and exams. The planet has now come into such a situation that now is the time to bring this learning into practice in real life. The 4 R’s here stand for reuse, reduce, recycle, and recover. Reduce energy consumption at home, reduce wasting petrol/diesel, reduce the consumption of fast fashion, reduce releasing carbon footprints as much as possible, reduce cutting of greener spaces, reduce the use of plastic, etc. Reuse your clothes to the T and not indulge in mindless shopping, reuse the stuff at home, reuse the plastic cans that you get for free instead of buying fancier ones that do no good to the environment, etc. Use recycled materials for everything like you are renovating your house, so use old wood instead of getting new ones because that results in cutting off the trees, use recycled materials to help make new cars, etc. Recover or repair is more related to the waste management sector. The whole idea of these 4 R’s is to make Earth better and let it heal in the best possible way.

3. Avoid fast fashion as much as it can be done

Again, talking about social media, we want to put out one reference out there. There was a popular reel doing the rounds that funnily showed our overconsumption. It was an eye-opener in a lot of ways because it directly attacked us by showing that we have enough things in one genre and yet we keep on buying those items only out of our wants. The black Friday sales, the influencer culture, the ever-changing trends and the urge to be in sync with them, the rise of pop culture brands, the Instagram life, and all of these things are consciously or unconsciously forcing us to be slaves of fast fashion as much as possible.

Fast fashion is cheap, accessible, and something within our reach which makes us get tempted by it often. But, overconsumption means over-production which has a serious impact on our environment and we can help to cut it down massively. We understand ‘you only live once’, and we all do, but the idea is to be mindful about our shopping, buy the things that we need, do not buy two things that are the same/similar, and you know what we are talking about. Slow fashion and homegrown brands are great alternatives to this too.

4. Public transport over personal ones

Remember we were taught this in school? We were also taught to pool down our vehicles as much as possible because that can help us save petrol/diesel. There was a reason this was taught in our schools because these habits can be a major contributor to a better planet in the long run. As adults, we are all tempted to buy our cars and vehicles. This is not something bad. To grow in life, to celebrate our success, to add a feather to our cap, we need these materialistic possessions. Also, they are here to make our lives easier, so why not? We are not here to force big commitments on you to not buy bigger cars, etc. We just want you and us to be collectively mindful. Our idea is to let this belief sink in that public transport is not bad of an option when going to offices, when going for shopping, etc. If you are going alone, public transport is such a good idea because you are not wasting gas by just driving alone. If lots of people are going to one place or in one direction, pooling vehicles is always a great idea, and so on. It looks like a small step but adds to big positive changes. It also looks like a big task in the beginning but it is all a matter of habit.

5. Protect the ‘Green Spaces’

Finally, we are here to save the green spaces around us. By green spaces, we mean parks and gardens. These green spaces and green pastures of land are important for us. They absorb carbon dioxide and are associated with lower levels of air pollution. There are a lot of benefits that trees have for us like regulating temperature by cooling overheated urban areas, reducing flood risk by absorbing surface rainwater and providing important habitats for a wide variety of insects, animals, birds and amphibians. Now, we cannot go out and stop urbanisation and commercialisation at an individual level but we can do something within our control and that is to create our own green spaces. We can turn our balconies into balcony gardens as they are trending and really aesthetic. They add a pleasant rustic charm to the house. We can turn our patios into a patio garden and grow moms home friendly plants on our terraces. So many things can be done on a personal level to grow more green spaces around us. Also, it would not hurt you to be a part of some organisations that do jobs on a grand level to protect the green spaces around us. You will feel really good about this contribution from your end. You can try that too.

Conclusion 

We didn’t want to bring some habits like ‘voice your opinion’, ‘join clubs’, ‘do protests’, etc. Not that those are wrong but we wanted to include some realistic habits that we can be mindful of, every day. We wanted to include something on an individual level that will not force you to take out extra time from your daily lives because most of the things that we start are left behind because of time and life issues. These were simple habits and changes that we can bring into our lives on an individual or family level and be a contributor in a major positive change in the climate. Happy Environment Day to one and all! Let us all do our bit in our ways. No effort is small and each action will count as a big one.

World Environment Day: It’s been so hot this year that climate change is no longer debatable. Recently there was a popular meme doing the rounds on social media that went like ‘It’s not even global warming anymore, it’s global boiling’. We want to say where’s the lie, right? Not just hot, but winters are extremely chilly…