Tarumitra seeks a Wholistic Response to Copenhagen

The world leaders are congregating in Copenhagen in the second week of December to formulate a global policy on global warming. Each of the countries is expected to announce their willingness to reduce the production of carbon dioxide that contributes substantially to the process of global warming.

Tarumitra students have been enthusiastic on the issues especially after one of them, Ms Yugratna Srivastava from Lucknow addressed the world leaders at the United Nations on 22 Sept 2009. She came back to her cheering peer group with a caveat that the fight was far from being over. She reported that the world leaders certainly were positive on an amicable settlement on the carbon footprint. But she said that the story does not end in Copenhagen.

Yugratna felt that the battle against the global heat has to be fought by every citizen. At a felicitation at the Amity University in her honour, Yugratna pleaded the thousands strong audience to adopt a simpler life style to begin with. “There must be a red alert on the use of electricity. We must drastically cut down on the use of electrical equipments such as lights and fans and resort to solar sources instead,” she said.

Elected as the “Hero of the month” by the United Nations, another girl student of class 9 of Mount Carmel School, Patna Shweta Marandi has been campaigning for the use of Compact Florescent Lamps and LED lights in homes and institutions. The twin student leaders met on 15 November at Tarumitra Ashram along with hundreds of their friends from Patna Schools.

The students brought out the following action plans:

1. Replace all bulbs with CFL and if possible LED (Light emitting diodes) lamps.
2. There must be an Energy monitor in each class to see that no electricity or water is wasted during school hours.
3. Homes and Institutions must drastically reduce the use of electric illumination at festivals, whether they be family or religious. Elaborate electrical illuminations whether they be in temples, churches or mosques has to be seen as desecration of God’s universe than as acts of devotion.
4. Since meat production is energy intensive, Tarumitra suggests that the students must prefer vegetarian to non-vegetarian meals.
5. Every student must plant at least a tree in a year and urge others to the same. Trees alone are capable of sinking all the extra carbon in the atmosphere.  
6. There is a need for an Eco-spirituality today. Human being must develop a filial relationship with the Earth mother and treat her with respect. Native American Chief Seattle postulated this in 1854 “The earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the earth. This we know. All things are connected like the blood which unites one family. All things are connected. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of the earth. Man did not weave the web of life; he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.”