There is no planet B

What would life be like without an environment in balance? Sometimes I feel like some politicians worldwide have the view that it would be perfect. Why would we need oxygen to breathe, and an ecosystem?

Camilla Appelgren is an Environmentalist

Things are changing at the moment. The question is if we will have enough time to repair the damage we have already made? We are seeing a young generation that understands the issue, and more importantly, takes action. It is indeed sad that they have to clean up after the older generation’s ignorance, but they unfortunately have no choice.

I always try my best to understand people’s behaviour and why they act in a certain way. However, I do notice lack of curiosity in the society, which worries me. Too many people aren’t curious to know how recycling works or, why balloon releases are bad for the environment. A company tells people that its balloons are biodegradable and good and that’s it, our curiosity stops. This will kill us in the end. It’s time to find the child within us, to ask all those stupid questions and keep on saying ‘Why?’ until there is no question unanswered.

So, back to the oxygen and the importance of a balanced ecosystem. Half of the world’s oxygen is produced via phytoplankton photosynthesis these are found in the ocean. The other half is produced by photosynthesis on land by trees and plants.

What do we do in Malta? We mistreat our sea and we cut down every tree that is in the way of construction. And then we scratch our head when we see increasing cases of children with asthma and less marine life.

You would think that plankton is useless, just like some think ‘it’s just a bottle cap’ or ‘just a plastic bag’. The phytoplankton is the base of the ecosystem, it might be small but without it we will die. When these tiny creatures cooperate with one of the biggest creatures on earth, magic happens. Phytoplankton needs the help of whales to reproduce, so the fewer whales there are, the less phytoplankton. The less phytoplankton there is, the less carbon dioxide sequestering that is able to occur. I guess you can figure out the end.

Yesterday I read an article about a whale found dead after ingesting 80 plastic bags. Every now and then I read about sea turtles and seabirds entangled in balloons and plastic strings. People on social media are upset, but afterwards apathy seems to take over. Very few want to actually change their habits - it is back to ‘it’s just a bag’ kind of behaviour.

In this era, there aren’t really any excuses. We have the knowledge in front of us, just a click away. If we don’t know something, we can easily find it. It just takes a bit of curiosity and willingness to learn.

I had an incident the other day where I was told off for starting the petition to ban balloon release in Malta. The comment field in a certain news article covering the matter was for a while turning very negative, with people ridiculing the cause. Their reason was that I was trying to ban their tradition and their children’s fun. They claimed that I was extreme and should take a step back, because they had always released balloons and always would. I shouldn’t, especially as a foreigner, interfere with the Maltese tradition and they claimed that the fun of their children came before caring for marine life. I was asked to prioritise something more important.

The issue here is that they don’t see the full picture. A balloon might be great fun and seen as a tradition, but so was the crusades once and hopefully that stopped. We need to release that traditions have to be amended at the time we realise the harm of them. We can’t justify having fun for a second and damaging the planet our children have to live on.

Do we want to be remembered as the generation that screwed it up? The generation that had all the tools and knowledge to save the people, but chose not to? Because please note, we are not saving the earth. Earth will thrive without us, we are saving ourselves by saving earth.

When our children one day ask us what we did to solve this, because they will, what can we tell them? Will we tell them that the balloon releases and convenience of using single use plastic was way more important than their future? Or will we tell them that we did what we could?

Your daily actions might feel small, but they are just like the planktons. They are the base of solving the issue and without you, we won’t succeed.

We need to stop living as if we are the last generation.