LET´S MAKE A CHANGE

I can´t be certain about this, but when I was a kid I always heard my parents or grandparents talking about how back in their times the  seasons where so precise and  timely. summer it was very hot, winter  was cold or very rainy. They  are always complaining how  at present you can´t be certain what to wear when you leave the house because you don’t know how the day might end, it seems to me to be true.

Sometimes you wake up to a beautiful sunny day and half the way through it, it will start raining or it can become very chilly outside and it can catch you unprepared for that kind of weather. Conversely, it can happen the  other way around, you can go out with a huge jacket and then it becomes so hot you feel suffocated. The weather is getting crazy and there seems to be  lots of reasons why it is happening. Some might say is global warming others might say is ozone pollution.  I think is a combination of that and some other factors, like water and air pollution, deforestation, animal extinction and smoke and petroleum contamination among others.

Our planet is having a harsh time. Earth is going through a lot right now. It’s being polluted, contaminated and abused. She is trying to make understand how much she is suffering with all these big warnings like earthquakes, tsunamis, tornados, etc. And we are not conscious enough. We act like nothing is happening and pretend everything is going to be ok, but at some point we will have to take responsibility and start doing something about it, and hopefully it will not be too late.

There have been so many natural disasters lately that are signals that something is wrong. The earthquake in Japan at the beginning of the year is an example. First an earthquake hit them and almost immediately after it was over a tsunami fell on top of them. More than 140,000 persons lost their lives and some of the damages where irreparable. The nuclear Fukushima plant was activated and released a lot of nuclear energy and radioactive material. This contaminated the air, the land near by, a lot of persons who needed to be treated with iodine after the plant had the meltdown, water and the atmosphere in general.

Then another example is the earthquake in Chile last year. There where over 75 deaths. It destroyed a big part of the city and left homeless a lot of persons.

Also last year here in Guatemala we experienced two natural disasters at the same time. Agatha, a tropical storm, reached Guatemala and El Salvador on March 31, 2010, leaving more than 90 death persons. The damages where already big enough when the Pacaya volcano was activated, sending a massive ash storm into the city. The people living near the Pacaya had to evacuate immediately. Most of them where poor families with not a lot of resources who lost absolutely everything to the lava and ashes.

Maybe sometimes we feel like we can´t do anything to help our planet because we are not old enough or because we don’t have enough money to give to special organizations etc. But we are completely wrong. We can do a lot just by planting a tree in our backward, not wasting water by taking quick showers and closing the faucet while we are washing out teeth, not wasting food or using biodegradable material and recycling. We are capable of doing so much for Mother Earth with small actions and little effort. It is time to become conscious about this situation we are living in and do something about it to start collaborating for a better world.

We have only one planet, one home, and we need to take care of it starting now. I am going to make a change even though it might be small, and for some insignificant. Are you ready to start making a difference too?