HOW IT DOES MATTER

THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT

Everything is connected in this world. Mountain to mountain. Dust to dust. Molecule to molecule. A tiny link in this complexly interwoven sphere can cause ripples on the opposite axis. It is just like a domino effect, except the fact that you will never be able to tell which path the domino is going to follow, as they fall in unimaginable number of directions. Meteorologist, Edward Lorenz put his paper in a historically acclaimed poetic line, ‘the flap of a butterfly in Mexico, can induce a hurricane in China’. This is called The Butterfly Effect’.

We have always known one thing. And that is, every action has a reaction. And god forbid, a much larger one. We do not live in a chain, but a loop. What goes around, comes around. No energy in the universe disappears in a void. The whole point of this is to state that every small action of ours matters.

We no longer can get away with a shrug ‘how does it matter?’

Take an example of the plastic straw, the most popular synecdoche for plastic. Imagine this – One day you denied a plastic straw at a cafe.

• You saved a life of a marine animal. We never know where the garbage goes. Your straw could have ended up in a water body and being tiny it could have ended up inside their stomachs (there is enough news about animals dying because of choking on plastic).
• One straw takes 200 years to decompose. You just made it easier for the earth. 90% of the plastic produced since 1950s still exists on earth. We don’t want to create more of that! Recycling is not an option for single-use plastic like straws. Plastic just breaks into tinier microplastic and disturbs the natural cycles. It is in the air, the soil, the water.
• You let the cafe know that you do not support plastic straw and they shouldn’t either. You inspired your friends to do the same and reduced the usage of straws by multifold.
• You motivated yourself to do this every time. Congratulations!
• If you want to level up, urge the cafes to keep paper/ bamboo/steel straws. Even better, carry your own sippers.

This is just one small example of how we can influence so much change. Of course, by no means we can be perfect and we make choices which are about out own comfort and desires all the time. We like to live in the moment and take what is the best because “we all die one day”. And that really is the most convenient excuse.

But it is tougher to do the right thing. We must consciously try to do that at every small opportunity we get. We must practice saying NO to choices that are not pro-environment. We need to reduce the boundary of our comforts and desires, even if it takes baby steps to get there. Because, whether we want it or not, we are active parts of the planet.

Whether we want it or not, all our actions have consequences which are greater than us. Every action of ours is creating ripples into the future.

Environmental change often becomes a lost cause in the background because here is a truth we can not deny — the biggest barrier to change is our belief that someone else will do it. We need to bring this thought in the forefront of our conscious for every small action we take. Become critical of your choices. Take more responsibility. Think bigger. This is really no motivational speech, but a call to real action.

Can you do your bit? Because every bit matters.

As you scroll through our news feeds, reading about forest fires, floods and droughts and animal extinction, you feel a little sad, a little shocked. You are part of that very change that is happening right now. But you are also the cause of what will happen in the future. And you have already set it in motion.