Internet never ceases to amaze us with all its trends. One such trend that got almost everyone talking is #gonnatellmykids.
Now, there are many things we want to tell our kids, right? From Orkut to Counter Strike and Road Rash, we want to tell them about all our fondest memories.
This trend got me thinking about the things we won’t be able to tell our kids, because we simply can’t.
Remember all those times when we were warned about the increasing temperatures of the Earth?
The kind of changes that would normally happen over hundreds of thousands of years are happening in decades.
How are we ever gonna tell them about all those trees we’ve cut down in the name of development?
A report by The Guardian stated that a wide belt of rainforest that once circled the earth, is being rapidly replaced by swathes of plantations, expanding cities and dams. The condition is so severe that 20% of the Amazon rainforests have already been lost to deforestation.
And what about the basic necessities of life? We don’t even know if our next generations will have sufficient drinking water or not.
Earlier this year, Chennai, the 6th largest city of India, faced severe water shortage for weeks.
And a recent report by the Niti Aayog claimed that 21 Indian cities will run out of groundwater by 2020. The situation is more alarming than it seems, as 40% of India’s population will have no access to drinking water by 2030.
We were lucky to have witnessed the incredible biodiversity around us.
If the present scenario sees no improvement, our next generations would not be able to see the majestic wildlife and the amazing birdlife that exists today. While a large number of wildlife species have already gone extinct, others are nearing extinction.
Similar is the fate of the other beautiful ecosystems of the world, like the mangroves, coral reefs, etc.
Climate change and pollution have caused so much harm to the Great Barrier Reef in the last 5-6 years that it is almost impossible for it to recover now. Destruction of the coral reef has the same effects on the marine ecosystem that deforestation has on the terrestrial ecosystem.
And I am sure this is not something we will be able to tell our kids proudly about.
Over the last few years, it became quite common to hear of hate crimes in India. From mob lynching to honour killings, we have witnessed hundreds of them every year.
It’s just now that we’ve started thinking about the reduction of single-use plastics. With the amount of plastic that we have been using, we are going to leave nothing, but a sea of plastic waste for our next generations.
Don’t believe me? A report predicted that by 2050, plastic in the oceans will outweigh fish. 2050 is very close and we will have to answer our kids.
Leave everything, what about the air that our kids would be breathing? Will it be worse than this?
Year after year, we have been smoking deadly air. Not just Delhi, the air quality is in the red category for several other cities as well. And the situation isn’t improving despite knowing the consequences.
These things should make us scared, really scared. And I hope we work towards bettering them so that we don’t have to tell our kids about all of this.