Marwa Fayyaz
Hastily, I woke up, grabbed my paintbrush, dabbed in into the green paint, mixing a little white to produce a softer shade, and started painting energetically, one stroke here and a stroke there. The dream still fresh in mind, fed my vivid imagination. Attempting to bring it to material form, I worked the entire afternoon, in a public park, situated right across my street.
A giddy wave of panic shook me. Staring in disbelief, I studied the park around me, warily and carefully. My hands jammed. It wasn’t even a slight vision of what I had seen in my dream; it had undoubtedly been the most astonishing work of nature. The magnificent greenery, the loftiness in the tall and grand trees was simply awe-inspiring. Some trees bore bright and shining leaves that gave sufficient shade in the rays of the sun. Low height shrubs swayed around. Plants bore flowers of colours and surrounding grass waved with breeze, supplying fresh and soothing air. Singing merely, beautiful white-feathered birds flew above the banks of a steam that flowed rapidly.
These presented a prominent and fine sight. Coming back to reality, all I saw around was a deceased and lifeless park. The weather, extremely dry and the grass, once stunningly green, put up a fight to keep from turning hard: crunchy and brown. Indeed the flowers have gone and shrubs are barren. What’s further disturbing is the mass of garbage lying around, people just passing by and not giving slight consideration.
Several questions bombarded my mind: Can I visualise a sky that is a permanent black colour? Can I breathe if all the trees disappeared? How will humans survive if the atmosphere gets hotter and hotter? Scientists have predicted drastic changes in the next 50 years, with increase in temperature and sea level, melting of polar caps to a great extent. Increasing global temperatures are disrupting the ecosystem and also causing extinction of species. Man-made global warming is approaching too rapidly, not giving adequate time to several species to adapt, hence, profoundly lessening their chances of survival.
Its trees that assist in keeping our air clean, absorbing carbon dioxide and giving out oxygen, keeping the cycle balanced. The average vehicle solely, puts out tons of carbon dioxide a year. We are not only setting out emissions but also taking out nature’s strategy to eliminate emissions by cutting down trees.
An inconvenient truth, the documented movie about Al Gore’s campaign to enlighten nations about consequences of global warming, unsealed my eyes to see how litter, technology and modernisation is the cause of several environmental disasters. We are well aware that natural means and resources are limited. Yet, these are continuously being exploited to meet infinite human needs today.
Look around us; the earth around is significantly different from what it was years ago. Sadly, we are doing nothing to call a halt to it. Oh, the world is in danger!