23-April- 2020 – Pakistan Observer
“Mother Earth has pro“ vided us abode and everything we need to live but now asking us, specially the leadership, to let all its children breathe clean air, drink clean water, eat natural food that it grows in its womb,” said Nisar A. Memon, former federal minister and senator.
He cautioned, “when the children violate the trust and fail to fulfill obligations, the mother trembles with earthquake, releases its anger with fire and molten lava, shed tears with rain and flood, gets indifferent to children losing immunity to virus and disease, let them produce unclean energy with green gas emissions, and bring uncertainty of climate changes.”
He believed that it is not only for the governments to respond to call of Mother Earth by implementing Water, Environment, Food, Forest and Energy Policies we have put in place in last two decades; but for opposition political leadership to ensure compliance in assemblies and outside. Failing which, he alerted, “citizen movements can erupt across length and breathe of country, specially in deprived areas and poverty ridden sections of society.”
Senator Memon queried, “haven’t we experienced enough reminders to wake us up and make a solemn pledge to Mother Earth on a day when all suffering children across the world will speak with one voice for Mother Earth. The day is today the 22nd April which has been observed since 1970 and called ‘Earth Day’. Each time we have wronged Mother Earth our knuckles are rubbed. This time we made mother so unhappy, it let Covid-19 hurt us immensely.”
Giving historic background of Earth Day he said that 50 years back, millions of Americans demonstrated to initiate movement for a healthy and sustainable environment demanding from leadership a new way forward. It resulted in passage of environmental laws in USA. Later, many countries followed by adopting similar laws. Earth Day received worldwide recognition leading to historic 1992 United Nations Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro reconciling economic development with protection of environment. In 2016, United Nation chose Earth Day to sign Paris Climate Agreement recognizing the existential threat from loss of biodiversity to climate change to plastic pollution.
Last year in September 2019, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres convened Climate Change Summit and Youth Climate Summit for further climate action to reduce emissions and we heard young Greta Thunderbird telling world leaders,“you are failing us.”
Senator Memon called upon the political leadership, “to make firm commitment not to let corruption affect implementation of existing policies and programs in earnest,” he added ,”by allocating necessary budgets and resources for clean air, clean water, affordable clean food, and enabling environment to be good children of Mother Earth.”
At the same time he strongly advised citizens, “to ensure discipline, compliance to government policies and programs, and mold their post pandemic lives with only necessary movements to conserve their and country resources and ensure leadership do not renegade on their commitments.” He hoped that all of us will cease to rampage Mother Earth for a better life.