Citizens' responsibility toward Environment

Each living being has a role, a purpose, a mission to achieve and perform in their lives. The role of most animals is to survive, outlive other species, reproduce and then as their mission-to keep their family running- is achieved, die. Nature meant for the human beings mission to be such too. But man has progressed and his role, purpose in life is to earn money in whatever way possible. In the course of life, we come across many people, some important, others who make no difference whatsoever. And as “social creatures” we have a sense of responsibility-responsibility, being answerable to these many people for our actions, seeking their opinions even at times when it is not essential or feasible. We are responsible to our own parents, our loved ones- being there for them, fulfilling their aspirations. We maintain a sense of belonging to the community, the social ladder, our colleagues and their criticism and praise tends to influence our decisions in a major way. And apart from being answerable to, responsible for ourselves, our lives, each of us has a sense of responsibility towards each other, Mother Nature and OUR ENVIRONMENT.
It is the duty, the role of each citizen, each individual, the society, the community to care for our environment. All the area around us, our home, our colony, our city, our country and the whole world is our responsibility. Our environment is basically the world around us that affects us, directly or indirectly. And yes, this does include our atmosphere, hydrosphere, lithosphere and each other.
Caring about the environment does not end with knowing about it, being aware. One must physically apart from socially do something for the environment. We all know about the environmental crisis gripping the world. This will affect each of us. We must take measures to curb this, both at an individual level and as a community.
The first step is acknowledging that there is a global problem and this will affect us drastically if we do nothing, choose to ignore it. Once the realization of its existence is evoked, we must realize that, knowingly or without our knowledge, somewhere we are responsible for the creation of this crisis that threatens our environment. Secondly, it is important to remember that we are the ones who have to overcome it, care for our environment. And if we don’t, nobody will. Thirdly, thinking is not enough. We must ACT; perform our duty, fulfill our responsibility towards the environment. We can start simply at an individual level. Small acts, everyday can go a long way,
Acting on our duties, performing our role is relatively easy. Changing the mindset of people is difficult. Most of us seem to bear in mind that ‘I’ am not responsible, everyone else is. We seem to feel that in such a vast world, our saving a few litres of water, our walking short distances will not make a difference as everyone else will be causing pollution at an increasingly alarming rate, unfortunately most of us end up thinking so and no one acts, we all try to SPREAD AWARENESS among others. What we forget is that ten people acting makes a greater impact and difference than a thousand “AWARE CITIZENS” .If we act as individuals and decide that it is “MY” responsibility probably the results will be better. When you ACT it is then that you become a “RESPONSIBLE CITIZEN” from a mere “AWARE CITIZEN”.
So, the key to saving the environment lies in changing the thought process of the human mind. Easier said than done, that is. We need to become responsible of each of our actions and need to realize that we have a certain level of responsibility towards the environment. And if each citizen acts and feels it “MY” responsibility to save the environment, a lot can easily be achieved. As they say

“Little drops of water,
Little grains of sand
Make the mighty ocean,
And the beauteous land”

So, each of us holds the capacity to save our deteriorating environment. All that is needed is that sense of responsibility be evoked. Once you feel responsible towards something, you feel it is your duty to do something, to ACT!! And if each citizen can feel the overwhelming sense of responsibility, they will all act and save our environment before it is too late.


“ If it is mine
It has to be fine
If I do my duty
Restore the lost beauty
No one can ever stop me
And not even HE
Alone, I’m not small
If not the all
All alone I can do
And if you feel so too
Don’t sit and wait
For it to be too late
Forget the hate
Go out of the gate
And do the right
For it you fight
With all your might
And if we work as one
The job is fully done
And I know that we surely can
With the support of each man”

We need to think of the environment as our own and the responsibility will come of its own; the responsibility that we feel towards everything that is ours, then we can all work together to overcome the environmental crisis.