“Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s needs, but not every man’s greed” – Mahatama Gandhi 

Clouds are getting greyer; the water is getting blacker and the streets dustier. Have you ever wondered what the Earth might’ve been like if we weren’t there? It would’ve been greener, countless animals wouldn’t have been dying across this planet, fishes would not be full of cancers and their would have been fresh clean air void of any chemicals. We talk about saving the environment and conserving our resources, but do we really implement it. Making environment cleaner is like freedom struggle, unless we don’t take a mass action together as humans with not any division between countries and religions, our struggle towards clean and pollution free environment is futile.

Since ancient times detailed descriptions of the mutual relationship between man and nature are found in nature. It is represented as mother in our Vedas, thus giving environment conservation a spiritual meaning too. One of the main aspects of Environment conservation is judicious use of any resource.

Fuel is any material that can be made to react with other substances so that it releases chemical or nuclear energy as heat to be used for work. Some examples of fuels are – wood, coal, petroleum, natural gas and nuclear fuel. As we can see, all of these are examples of non-renewable resources; they can be exploited but not reproduced. Moreover, Coal, oil and gas consist largely of carbon and hydrogen. Annually, a coal power plan burns 3 million tons of coal, producing 11 million tons of carbon dioxide, since there are more than 5,000 power plants in the world they are producing carbon dioxide in thousands of tons or even more! India alone has more than 400 power stations. Burning of fuel contributes tremendously in harming the environment. Burning of coal and mineral oil also adds sulphur di oxide in the atmosphere, which results in burning of eyes, hoarseness of throat, respiratory and lung diseases.

Some other factors such as excessive use of CFC’s (cholorofluoro carbons) in appliances such as refrigerators and air conditioners caused a hole in the ozone layer, which protects the earth from the harmful UV rays. Oil spills in the ocean during the transportation of petroleum, causes harm to the marine life. Cutting wood from forest leads to deforestation and erosion of soil.

Today fuel has become a burning problem of the world, causing environmental misbalance. Man is an active being he uses power to preform each activity and its, him who can save it. Some ways to conserve energy doesn’t have to be big like, proposing the carbon taxation or talking about less subsidization of fuel. It can start from our homes. A significant example is: In California, the state estimated that each household has an average of 11 battery chargers, giving a total of 170 million chargers in the state. Reducing their standby power consumption, it is said they would save around 2,200 gigawatt hours each year, which is equivalent of powering 350,000 homes for a year – which is equivalent to a whole city Oakland.

Some other small steps we could take for a big change are, firstly, the cheapest and cleanest energy choice of all is to not waste it. Secondly, the second easiest method of saving fuel is carpooling or using a bus rather than car to go to school. Minimize the use of breaks and turning off your car while waiting in a traffic light is an effective way to save it. Using public transport system can be a hustle, but it saves more energy than not plugging in a charger. Delhi transport system runs on CNG, which is a cleaner fuel.

Well all usually talk about turning off the lights when not needed, turning off fans when leaving the room but do we actually do it? If we honestly answer, no, most of us don’t. Implementing of these small steps is the most necessary part.

Us as educated citizens, it is necessary to spread awareness about fuel conservation.  It may help the environment in a scale we never thought it would. If we think that what is soil erosion or having less fuel going to do to us? Exploitation of fuel causes a domino affect which all comes back to us. Thus we should always remember that its small step towards a goal that matters, we could not make a big leap towards it. It may mean that you would have to climb a few stairs when you remember you left the lights on, walk a few steps, or even bulk up on clothes rather than lighting up a fire. But in end, it’s all worth it. Always remember, ‘ we did not inherit the earth from our ancestors, but have borrowed it from our children’.

Happy fuel saving!