SIBM Bangalore Toastmasters Club
CC Project 9
The Elemental Truth
It
was 7.00 am in the morning; the air was filled with the chirping of birds, the
ringing sound of the milkman’s cart and the call of the newspaper guy. At 7 ,
usually the sun is out shining but I did not even bother to go the window and
look outside, because I knew that at that time, the air is filled with
pollution which makes visibility almost zero. It was preferred to buy bottled
water because the pollution made the metro water unfit for drinking. Oh , as
well as I didn’t have power for the last 2 days.
Toastmasters,
do you know that the Rs 18/water bottle[wave it to the crowd] which we pay is
not because of water scarcity but because of water wastage, the recent grid
failures ,not once but twice are not because of power scarcity but because of
unchecked exploitation of natural resources, every time you use the axe deo[wave
the spray], I am not sure if angels are falling,, but the pollution
level is surely rising.
Had
Newton been alive today, he would never have discovered the Law of Gravity,
because there are no trees nowadays from which an apple can fall.
The
capital of Iran was forced to declare 2 days of extra holidays because the
pollution level reached beyond permissible limits.
And
that, friends, is the Elemental Truth.
Toastmasters...
Imagine
a world with no power, plunged into darkness, a place where the moonlight is
hidden by polluted air and the sunlight is too harsh to stand. A planet where
even a spark of light
Is
a welcome feeling, the warmth of the fire is a luxury, the sight [switch on the
lights] of a fellow being a blessing.
A
planet where you cannot distinguish water from a drink [show 2 bottles, one
full of black coloured water and another a real coke bottle] .
[Forcefully,
asking some individual toastmasters] Do you want such a planet? Would you live
in such a home? Which bottle would you
drink from?
[Pause....]
But where
there are shadows, there is always a light somewhere. And the good thing is
that the light is shining bright, far off, but still shining.
While some people are ignoring the environment, 300,000 trees are being planted
every day. The change is has already begun. And we need to be a part of it. We
should be.
Research
has shown that the coolness of the shade given by a full grown tree is equal to
10 room sized air conditioners running 20 hours a day.
In
winter, trees help to keep the area warm and the heating cost can be reduced by
25%.
100
trees can help stop the soil from getting washed away by water equal to 400,000
litres of water.
1
tree can store 20 kgs of toxic carbon dioxide in a year and give out oxygen for
2 human beings.
I
am sure you would be asking “How? What to do? I love clean air, clean water and
a clean life but I am not sure how I can pitch in."
All
you need to do is just PLOT.
PLOT
stands for Plant Lots of Trees
Every
one of us can help our planet by making PLOT the keyword in our daily
activities.
Can
we not plant a sapling in our own backyards and neighbourhood, wherever
possible? Can we not nurture this sampling using our daily kitchen wastage?
We
can ask the kids of the neighbourhood to plant a tree, nurture it and have a
competition on whose tree grows the fastest.
For
every happy occasion in life we can resolve to plant a sapling.
When
we are booking tickets online, be it for travelling or a movie, there is an
option to donate a small amount for planting a sapling.
There
are NGO’s like The Sapling Project which have exclusive drives in
neighbourhoods for planting trees.
By
way of PLOTting , will can ensure a future which is bright as the sunshine,
clear as river water, free as the air and solid as the earth.
We
would then be leaving a legacy for our successors, because,
“We
have not inherited this world from our ancestors, but have borrowed it from our
successors”
Toastmasters,
I’m pledging to PLOT to share this wonderful gift
called Earth. Will you also do the same?
