Editor,
Be it on the occasion of the World Environment Day, or when a heatwave sweeps large parts of the country (as is being witnessed in the current instant), invariably social media gets flooded with moral sermons of not cutting trees or destroying water bodies with messages preventing global warming.
But do these highly responsible environment-friendly souls who create such messages, applaud it and zealously forward to all those who are in the contact list, actually follow it in their real lives?
Hope these people are not seen to frequent high-end resorts, malls, multiplexes, night clubs, discotheques, restaurants, hotels which often get erected by demolishing greenery and water bodies in the city suburbs or adjoining rural interiors. Hope they do not purchase flats in such highrises which also come up by violating all environmental norms.
It is alleged (true, of course) that the Himalayas are being commercialised with new hotels, restaurants being erected and roads being widened by ruthlessly demolishing greenery and rock faces – all to maximise tourism revenue. Hope those who make a hue and cry over it do not venture to such commercialised sections of the Himalayas for enjoying holidays to the hilt.
As for ‘global warming’, I hope the conscientious brigade, alarmed by the fatal future of the world, surely does not own private vehicles or install AC in their residences. But perhaps it is a tall order in such a society where social status is absolutely dependent upon ownership of a number of high-end cars and apartments boasting of centralised ACs.
Unless the talk gets walked, the persons concerned simply possess no moral right to deliver sermons on the occasion of World Environment Day or on issues of global warming during phases of severe heatwaves.
Kajal Chatterjee,
D-2/403,
Peerless Nagar,
Kolkata
