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Environmental Ethics

Prophets, saints and charismatic leaders have always helped the people remain well organized and capable of meeting threats of disruption and destruction throughout our history. Unfortunately there are no new prophets. Fortunately however, education and better communication facilities at our disposal make it possible to propagate the required new ethics, without any resort to religious appeal. It is therefore necessary for the more enlightened sections of society to propagate a code of environmental ethics.

I venture to suggest:

Three Way Prescription

with its Pledge, 10 Commandments and 5 Admonitions:

FIRST: A Pledge

»Take a personal pledge that you shall strive to leave every place you visit a little better when you leave, and in any case not worse, than as you found it on arrival. (This would apply to your bath, your office desk, the bench in the park, your picnic spot, and even this very planet.)

SECOND: The Ten Commandments

1. Remember that the earth is incomplete without the plants, animals and other living creatures, they always control their own population at optimum levels, and it is only our own ways that upset the natural balance and create problems for all.

2. Plan only one biological offspring, exercise your creativity in giving birth to ideas.

3. Think before you buy. Is it necessary? Will it increase eventual pollution?

4. Travel only if you must. (Share a car, use public transport, or your phone and the Internet. Let your body be in one location if possible, but let your mind travel far and wide to explore new areas.)

5. Strive for excellence and efficiency. Use less of everything. (This applies really to about everything like soap, water, fuel, energy, etc. but not to tact, courtesy and compassion !)

6. As far as possible avoid the use of such plastics and other materials which are not easily degraded

7. Maintain, repair and use as long as possible, and then give it to someone for reuse or for recycling. (This applies to your gadgets, your clothes, your house. Don't surrender to the craze for "the latest LATEST". Look for durability and not built-in obsolescence)

8. Trash is Cash, use it and recycle it, do not just dump it outside your home or office. This applies to your household rubbish, your kitchen waste, and even to the silly ideas in your mind!

9. Join together in action groups for a good cause, and promote your survival. Many causes need your help like the environment, spreading kindness as a habit, eradication of corruption and malpractice, banishing ignorance and poverty.

10. Build up the new environmental ethic and promote it in your family, profession, friends' circle and neighbourhood. You can leave the world a better place!

THIRD:The Five Admonitions

1. Do not buy or use disposable tins, bags, utensils, gadgets, etc. (Carry an old fashioned shopping bag rather than those thin plastic bags which threaten to bury our earth and smother life)

2. Do not buy over packaged products. (Pay for the contents rather than the packaging which will cause extra pollution when discarded)

3. Do not invest in companies whose activities and products increase pollution levels or are not conducive to preserving the environment

4. When voting in an election shun the candidates whose record shows they pollute the values in our society

5. Do not try to keep up with the Jones's. Every time you do so, you will have even more Jones's to keep up with, until there will be no Jones's and no YOU!

Vasant Kalbag