The United Nations observes various days throughout the year to honour and celebrate our environment. For the average individual, this means seeing a post on the internet about our failure at protecting the earth; and perhaps a moment of guilt. The next day, we all continue with our lives, pretending as if we’re not destroying the world around which we live in.

Nature has gifted us with the beauty of mountains, valleys and fields, a sky with all the colours in them and an ocean that extends as far as we can see. Everything we need to survive and thrive exists because of the unique and beautiful planet we live on. We often do not stop to think about the mere intricacy of the world we live in.

We’ve all gone to the beach at some point and felt that awe at how vast and beautiful the sea is. Nothing beats a summer day with the wind in our hair and the sand underneath our feet. Now imagine this lovely scene, but instead of clear waters you are surrounded by dirty polluted water and the sand is full of garbage. Good way to ruin a good image.

Dystopian movies and books set in a post apocalyptic world are very fun to read or watch. Ever wanted to part of those cool looking people who wander around a ravaged earth trying to survive? Well we’re in luck! Because if we continue doing what we’re doing right now (which is nothing) this is going to happen very soon!

Except when we’re all dying of thirst and wishing for a breath of fresh air, we won’t be wishing we were a part of that cool movie anymore.

75% of the earth is comprised of water, and yet ironically, water scarcity is one of the most looming threats on our horizon.

There’s a famous line from a poem that goes:

“Water, water everywhere, not a drop to drink”

And sadly this is a dangerously possible scenario in today’s world.

June 8 has been celebrated as World Ocean Day since 1992, aiming to bring more attention to the harm we’re doing to the very entity that surrounds us on all sides. The ocean, a major source of power via tidal and ocean energy, is home to a vast number of aquatic creatures that face extinction today because of our irresponsibility and the various pollutants we dump into the sea.

This year the theme for World Ocean Day has been declared as “Gender and Oceans”. This is a wonderful opportunity to celebrate both the ocean and strengthen the struggle for true gender equality, all over the world.

This theme gives us a chance to explore the gender dimension in our relationship with the ocean and to celebrate successful women in the field of marine conservation, while we try to work together to preserve the ocean and the incredible world that lives in it.

The UN has been encouraging us to look after our environment and the earth for a long time, and even though there is more awareness now than before, we still have a long way to go.

We dump our garbage in random places and forget about it. If it doesn’t stay there and fester, we consider it gone from our lives forever. However what happens to most of the trash we throw away is that it ends up being thrown into the ocean. There are islands of waste floating around in the very ocean we love to admire from sandy beaches. We wouldn’t be so interested in enjoying lovely ocean views if these floating piles of garbage were right in front of us. But since it’s not directly affecting us we pretend they don’t exist.

Despite the ocean covering most of our planet, this is not water we can actually drink. And yet we leave our taps open and refuse to put in any effort whatsoever to try to conserve what resources we have.

The ocean is responsible for most of the oxygen we breathe, it regulates climates around the world and is also a major part of the green house effect by removing excess amounts of carbon dioxide.

We’ve been learning about the importance of resources such as water from our earliest classes, these boring chapters and lessons hoping to create a generation of people who wouldn’t repeat our past mistakes and strive to do the bare minimum to protect the environment. And yet we do nothing.

It isn’t as if we are being asked to do a humongous task! All we have to do is to take a little bit of care in the way we live our life.

One might think that there’s no use of taking measures to protect the environment, since its not going to make a major difference unless each and everybody does it. And that’s where people go wrong. These small things we do can go a long way.

Do you want to know what we can do to protect the ocean?

It genuinely does not take too much effort, or put you in any kind of inconvenience, if anything, following simple practices like using less plastic or using ocean friendly products only help us in leading a healthier lifestyle.

Also, when we visit beaches we need not leave behind our waste on the sand. This is a principle that we must follow wherever we go and is considered to be a part of good manners, yet it is one rarely followed. There might be dustbins available and even then we prefer to leave our waste materials on the ground. And if dustbins aren’t available, how much hassle does it cost us to carry our waste back with us to be properly disposed off, instead of leaving it here and there?

It is our privileged attitudes that lead us to think that those 2 seconds we might waste is more important than doing a tiny step that can help in protecting the earth.

By undertaking little actions like these, we can surely make a difference.

We’re all going to see a dozen posts about oceans and the environment on this World Oceans Day as well. Instead of mindlessly sharing these and convincing ourselves that there isn’t anything we can do in this struggle against pollution and in protecting the earth, I hope that we all let that tiny sliver of guilt to stay inside our heads so that it may encourage us to be better people and to put a minimum effort at least to help our planet.