The whole world is going through very turbulent times with extreme weather events like drought, floods, forest, fires, etc. all happening in the midst of a pandemic. Even the pandemic is caused because of unnatural eating habits which are encroaching and destroying the environment and wildlife. By now there is now enough scientific evidence that human beings are the root cause of climate change. We see that due to human activity, carbon dioxide is increasing in the atmosphere, there are plastics floating in the middle of the oceans and common animals such as elephants and gorillas are in the danger of going extinct due to deforestation. There are human led activities like cutting down trees which are mainly done for agriculture in order to produce food products that you see in the supermarket. Uncontrolled deforestation is one of the major causes of forest fires as we saw the Australian and Amazon rainforest on fire last year. Such events bring about substantial increase in the global temperature which in turn causes glaciers and polar ice caps to melt. Due to this melting, sea levels rise causing flooding and risking coastal zones to go under water. You see how all this is interconnected and affects one another?

Since we as human civilization are responsible for putting our ecosystem and societies in danger, it is now time to reverse the damage. Youths around the world have recognized the urgency and they are raising their voices for making the changes on stopping the destruction. You can see many climate grassroot movements especially led by youth working towards these issues. Youths really have the energy and enthusiasm to show the way to transformation.

But you may wonder, what can one do as an individual? Well, the first thing is to pay attention to our own actions. Everything we do in our everyday life from eating, shopping, travelling, even browsing the internet has an environmental footprint! So be mindful of that and simplify your life. Here are three areas that are important where you can take action.

Eating: Eat simple, vegetarian, local and wholesome foods. There are a lot of processed and imported food products available in the market. Many of them contain preservatives coming from animal sources and unnatural additives which are harmful to the body and affect our mind in the long run. As the food so will be the mind. You think what you eat. Eating simple food actually gives us a lot of energy since it is easy to digest.

Electronics: As youths, we are attracted to own many electronic gadgets. We might even tend to replace our older one with newer products as soon as they get released in the market. Such behaviours are causing a lot of environmental destruction as they contain precious metals like gold and platinum. Discarding your old but functional mobile and laptops is putting more pressure on the natural resources of our planet. It is also a source of great distraction and we lose total focus in life if it goes unchecked. From both a mental and environmental perspective, it is recommended to avoid unnecessary usage.

Waste: Avoid any sort of waste. Be it food, electronics, plastic, time, money and thoughts. All these tangible and intangible resources are very important. Whatever we are all going through at the present time is very sensitive and precious, any form of waste, in the future, will come back to us in the form of trouble. So it is better to become sensible and avoid any waste.

The solution to these problems is to simplify our lives. Then it will be very easy and natural to lead a stress free, low footprint life. Finally, it is very important to tune in to discover the wonders of the mind and unbox the happiness within. When you are content on the inside, external stimulants will not be attractive anymore. Let’s make simple living a trending lifestyle choice.