In this time of continued COVID crisis, and trying to be careful with Social distancing and trying to do our best to comply with all standard operating procedures and protocols, it has given me the personal “time and space”, that I always aspired for.
Time for contemplation and keen observation. Looking around me I see a lot of plastic around me. I happen to live in a relatively less crowded area. I see farmland, a lake a short walk away. Sounds serene. Doesn’t it? It was a happy grazing ground for cattle.
However, the short walk through some woods, which was green and clean about 8 years ago, is today a dumping yard, with vast stretches of cultivable land giving way to new construction.
Cattle that were around reducing in numbers. I heard that a few of them choked and died because of eating/swallowing plastic waste. Shocking and sad!
I wonder what we are doing to our earth, and nature. Plastic is everywhere. Disposable plastic containers, single use plastics.
Ocean side and beaches with clean sand and breeze, giving way to the waves that bring tonnes of plastic waste material, rendering the beaches dirty and unsafe. Fishing zones are farther away, and deeper, as waste material, bulk of it being plastics, killing the underwater life systems, and driving them farther away and deeper.
I have seen documentaries of plastic waste that lines the entire route to the top of Mount Everest. From Deep Oceans to the highest mountains, we seem to be dumping waste.
There is so much of talk, so many conventions, many groups that are trying hard to rid this world of plastics, and also reinventing to waste treatment and recycling. It may be working in certain parts of the world?
Where lies the solution? Strong environment friendly organisations? Community initiatives, mostly local? Government initiatives, and strict lawmaking and enforcement? Effective waste recycling methods? New organic, eco-friendly material substitute for plastics?
The unpleasant outcomes and suffering due to new diseases, certain life species becoming extinct. The Increasing number of natural disasters.
Is there a sustainable strategy to prevent further damage, and to reclaim lost ground? I think the silver lining is in new educational strategies, where Nature is at the core of education. From early childhood learning to school education, and higher education, I would like to believe that at the heart of Education design, is about Human-Nature interplay. The future global citizens who are children of today will hopefully grow-up with a inherent nature for being life friendly. Including the Education Infrastructure.
Most Education segment Thought leaders are designing hybrid models for the New Normal. How can we design and implement the hybrid model, with Going Green being the central theme?
From tacit knowledge to more specialised teaching-learning systems are going Green? Hopefully yes!
