My Pledge To Mother Earth
Everyone has a pledge to someone else. A pledge is defined as a solemn promise that we give to somebody else or sometimes, to ourselves. When we pledge to do something we often have the urge to fulfill it. As a student, my pledge to my parents is that I will study hard and be successful in the future. However, I would like to ask everyone out there, “Do you have a pledge to our mother nature?”
As human, we have been taking a lot from our world and all of our activities boil down to pollutions, acid rain, green house effect, and a long list of man-made disasters. We never wonder how the smoke we emitted “choked” our atmosphere, how the sewage, oil spillage and toxic poison flow through the “arteries” of the earth. As I look back at how human carry out this “environment assassination”, I feel very guilty of myself, because I knew that what human is doing now is wrong because there is a saying,” evil triumph when good men do nothing”. I feel that after equipping myself with wide knowledge about the environment and not doing anything about it is a waste of the wisdom that is educated in me. Hence, I will stand up and give my pledge to the environment so that a better and a greener world for all of us can be realized.
My very first pledge to mother nature is very simple. I will always make sure that I will never litter anyway I like. Everyone knows that littering is indeed a very bad habit but honestly, sometimes we do throw it anyway we like before giving a second thought. This act may look natural for some of us,but guess what? Aluminium cans take at least half a century to decompose completely if they are not recycled. Polymers like polyethene will never decompose due to their complex molecular structure. If we do not throw them into the proper place they belong (the thrash can), these substances will bring great harm to our environment. Drains will be clogged, chemicals in the trash will poison the plant and our vital water sources. The accumulation of rubbish will bring a lot of disease-carrying vectors like mosquito and house fly. I have decided, I will never litter even until I am in my death bed.
My next pledge to the environment is that I will always practise recycling. When I was young , I kept wondering why my parents always collect and stack up the newspaper in the storeroom. I later found out that through recycling these newspapers, we are actually helping the authorities to reduce logging. It is true that trees are needed to make paper but we are not told that to get certain trees, a lot of younger trees are cut down to make way for the heavy machineries . Hence, recycling is the best way to make sure that the resources we have will not be wasted. In this way, the consumption of energy can be reduced. Here is the reason, recycling a used aluminium can instead of extracting it from the soil can cut down the energy used by 90%.
My final pledge is that I am determine to make sure that the future generations are going to carry the call to make a greener world. I promise that I will educate my children to treasure what they have. I realized that the effort of helping our Earth is not enough in just one generation. We must bring forth the strength of all nations because only with the unity of every community, we can fight the adverse effect of our own doing. There is a saying “unity is strength”. As I educate my children to love green, they will one day spearhead the effort of saving mother nature.
Saving our biosphere is a constant effort that we must put into. However, now is the critical time for us to put in more effort because a stitch in time saves nine. On the other hand, if we are just being ignorant and keep up with our ‘good’ effort of making our world sick, the time will come when all our last effort to help her will be like flogging a dead horse.
So, what is your pledge to mother earth today?

Selwyn Jong 5 Alpha 2010