Just a Thought

To Act Now

Yamin Tauseef Jahangir

The human nature is always critical, as in most occasions it tries to find the easiest route to avoid a situation. It does not only apply to people of our country but it works for the majority of the population all over the world. We have a tendency to talk big and hardly sit back and welcome logic to criticise our rationality, thereby making our conscience blind to circumstances. It starts early as a child, when one wants to unlock the secrets of life with all its innocence. It began at a time when you first had realisations between the right and the wrong and yet you lured yourself to be ignorant about your instincts for doing anything good for the society.

In your adolescence you encountered a whole lot of different things that life had offered at that time and got an idea of the 'do's and the 'don'ts' to be a better human. But what are the odds that you would not stick to your promises of being that responsible someone? They are plenty. By the time you hit adulthood, your goals and priorities have changed. It is almost obvious to find students who in most cases go on doing assignments at the last minute. Maybe they do it till they graduate, but they don't get the fact that this very practice hinders them from competing in the local market where 'time' will be the ultimate deciding factor of their fate.

In recent times the 16th United Nations climate conference took place in Cancun, Mexico where Bangladesh along with other vulnerable countries raised their voices for the disbursement of the climate funds, which was promised the year before in the Copenhagen summit. We pledge about the reduction of carbon emission by the other developed or developing countries, which is certainly not the first time that we have said something regarding this matter. Talks and more talks, shaking of hands and nodding of the heads will not bring the matter to a conclusion, as it didn't happen in the past, not happening at present, and we really don't know about the future. In a report of The Daily Star titled 'Climate fund still a pledge' by Pinaki Roy (dated November 29, 2010), it had been mentioned that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Report of 2007 says due to global warming, the situation would be irreversible if the carbon emission is not reduced within the next 10 years. While we go on watching the difficult scenario of the climate refugees knowing the fact that time is running out, we, on the other hand simply go on doing press conferences and justify our very grave concerns.

A much hyped up news in recent times is saving the tigers. The Global Tiger Summit in St. Petersburg hosted 13 countries that are home to wild tigers to come to commitments in order to save this magnificent creature from extinction. The questions that may arise now are, “Why now?”, “What happened before?” and the only 'real' answer to such questions could be “ignorance”. National Geographic aired a documentary titled 'Inside: The Tiger Trade', where they showed how Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) of London spent about five years in gathering evidences and sources of tiger poaching and the booming business that it has become for certain countries. In a conference at Kathmandu a few years back, EIA re-introduced the matter, but little got done about it. As the tigers now only occupy 7% of their original range (source: Last chance to save the wild tigers by Robert Zoellick, Editorial, The Daily Star, dated-November 25, 2010), their time towards extinction is nearly ahead. Our country on the other hand has got only 440 tigers now and if we don't act fast to save them, may be 'later' would be too late of a term to apply.

We are always doing things at the last minute. Be it in saving the world or even taking up challenges to fix a fault, we always tend to shove ourselves aside and watch things burn from a distance. Some things are easier said than done, but they are not impossible. It only takes a stitch in time to save nine.