Awakening the Climate Warrior Within for a Sustainable Future

By Jaithun Bi. J

In the end, we will conserve only what we love, we will love only what we understand, and we will understand only what we are taught.

Baba Dioum

Introduction

I have always been an ocean lover. That led me to watch documentaries like “Chasing Corals” and “Chasing Ice“. And since then my mind has never been the same as before. I got worried and concerned about nature in general which we now call eco-anxiety.

Our Earth is getting hotter and hotter which raises the temperature of the ocean by 2° Celsius which is detrimental to the underwater kingdom especially corals which would bleach fast with less recovery time. This is all because of the greenhouse gasses emitted by human activities.

I naturally gained an affinity towards climate actions which made me do the Young Influx‘s Climate Consciousness Challenge. I must say that it has been a wonderful learning experience for me in these past 21 days about climate change and what we can do to help the planet get back to its original good state.

My Inspiration

My story of becoming a climate warrior is kinda weird. I am a zoology student but I was not satisfied with my core subject. I didn’t know why I chose zoology in the first place but somehow I did. Then one day, I watched 2 documentaries highlighted above which completely blew my mind, made me very emotional and connected me deeply with the thoughts of climate change and nature.

The late Dr Ruth Gates who was an ocean biologist is my greatest inspiration to take zoology into serious account and work towards the well-being of nature. The passion I saw in her work and eyes and in her voice while she spoke sparked a whole universe in me to get involved in conservation activities.

I started voicing my opinions on climate change through my podcast show known as RISE ABOVE With Jaithun Bi. People get back to me after hearing the episode and share their concerns too. Now I feel like – I finally found my “WHY?” to continue being a zoologist and work towards climate action.

My Learning Experience

Young Influx’s 21 Days of Climate Consciousness Challenge brought me one step closer towards climate action. Starting from Day 1, I got a chance to calculate my own carbon footprint and plant trees by turning on Ecosia as my default web browser, and also deleted all of my unwanted emails and unsubscribed from spam emailers which could have helped the planet at least by 1%.

There were transportation, clothing and fashion challenges which I think was the need of the hour as Barbie-inspired fashion clothing was trending again as we got to watch Barbie the movie. All this fashion stuff will never be reused and it only will get dumped and added to the already prevailing waste.

This knowledge helped me to realize how important it is to recycle and remake our old clothes and lead a sustainable life. Plantnet app is such a boon to all the nature girls like me we can upload or capture an image of a random plant by the roadside and can get to know its common and scientific name.

Thanks to Young Influx, I got to know the existence of the Plantnet app. I’m amazed and thrilled to be a part of this great community which brought us all together to take action against climate change and inspired us to live a sustainable life. 

Why Should We Target Kids?

In my mind, all kids are born scientists. They’re born adventurers. They want to explore. If we can get kids to hold on to that curiosity, then our planet would be a much better place.

Zack Rago

This generation’s kids are extremely talented and intelligent and if we as adults would be able to channel these talented kids and their brilliant questions into climate change actions, the growing young minds will develop new ideas and policies to support the planet in future.

I would love to share my own story over here. I was tutoring two kids, one was a 7th grader and another one was a 4th grader. I played a small documentary named “Lost Cities – A Story of Corals” on my laptop and made them watch for 10 minutes, I explained everything in detail like what’s happening in the documentary and this 4th grader started weeping suddenly.

I asked, “Why, what happened dear?” She said “Akka, I didn’t know that we were this cruel to this planet. I feel so sorry for being irresponsible. I don’t want the corals to die because of my actions. I will make sure that I will switch off the electrical appliances when not in use and I’ll try to be a good girl to Mother Earth.” 

Her response got me emotional and made me realize that “Kids! Yes Only Kids can understand how real climate change is and if their minds are tuned well, we can expect a pleasant future for our mother Earth” 

We Are the Rulers; We Are the Blamers

We often say “It’s not my problem. The government should take the necessary actions. I pay my bills and taxes honestly and I can’t worry about all this external stuff as it’s not my issue.”

But darlings, this is our planet. This is our home. We are the dwellers of it. If we know how to rule, we must also know how to take care of it. We easily blame others. But you know what, we must blame ourselves.

Be self-conscious about your environment – be it physical or digital. Make sure you keep your environment breathable. Complacency has ruined the lives of many and history is the evidence of it.

Let’s not make the same thing happen again. The problem is we think that it’s none of our business but actually it is. So let’s get educated and educate others. 

Conclusion

It’s high time that we realize how important it is to take action towards climate change. It’s never too late to start something new. Let’s recreate our relationship with the planet. 

As we say, our Earth is getting hotter than Harry Styles. Jokes apart, It’s always better to light one candle than to curse the darkness.

It’s not too late for our planet. It’s still possible to reduce the rate at which the climate is changing and that’s within our power today. This blog is dedicated to all the young minds who can and will make a difference.

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We at Young Influx appreciate Jaithun Bi for her dedicated participation in the ’21 Days of Climate Consciousness’ challenge, contributing to climate action, as perfectly reflected in her written experience.

If you’re also inspired to strengthen your climate advocacy in just 20-30 minutes a day for 21 days, join us here and let’s make a change!