Each individual on this planet should understand the seriousness and urgency of environmental imbalance been created by us humans and its consequences. If we do not permit the earth to produce beauty and joy, it will in the end not produce food either. Once Mahatma Gandhi had famously said, “What we are doing to the environment of the world is going to be a mirror reflection of what we are doing to ourselves and one another”. We must understand one simple thing, it’s an environment where we all meet, where we all have a mutual interest, it is the one thing that all of us share. We must work together to save our planet as it is our sole residing place in this universe.
CHARUSAT and CEE (Centre for Environment Education) jointly organized a webinar on “Sustainability Post COVID-19” ON 3RD JUNE 2020. The webinar was addressed by Dr. Kartikeya Sarabhai – a Padmashree Awardee and an environmental educationist. Dr. Sarabhai is a distinguished degree holder from MIT-HARVARD and being a son of eminent and visionary Scientist Dr. Vikram Sarabhai is bestowed with astounding foresight.
Dr. Kartikeya Sarabhai had chosen the field of sustainable development several decades back during his academic advancement. The glaring illustration of this is CEE Ahmedabad, where the organization is promoting the ideas of sustainable development and living harmoniously with nature. The webinar prelude and a welcome address to Dr. Kartikeya Sarabhai, all the participants and members of the CEE family were done by Dr. Devang Joshi, Registrar CHARUSAT University.
Dr. Joshi divulged about CHARUSAT’s vision of imparting not just education but the education converted into practices. Elaborating on the sustainable development initiative program of CHARUSAT, Dr. Joshi spoke about work done by the university on several fronts such as community development, livelihood improvement, energy conservation, usage of solar energy and achieving growth through three pillars of sustainability – i.e. Social, Economic, and Environment. Under the guidance of Dr. Sarabhai, CHARUSAT has developed Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Lab, which is acting as a bridge between education and action with courses like SDG HANDPRINT action lab. The Lab is based on United Nations Seventeen Sustainable Development goals.
In his webinar speech, Dr. Kartikeya Sarabhai elucidated on sustainable development goals post-COVID 19. He talked about how nature has been serving humankind since its origin and how we humans are causing imbalance through bad practices and explosive population. Mahatma Gandhi has once said that nature has enough for everyone’s need but not for any one’s greed. Overexploitation of mother earth has led to several hardships to humankind one being the current Pandemic.
Dr. Sarabhai also gave the reference of PM MODI’s speech of the 2015 Paris Agreement where he called for a change in lifestyle so that we change the burden that we put on the planet. This interaction with Dr. Sarabhai was of great help and knowledge worthy for all the participants as he beautifully elaborated on, “What is the good of having a nice lifestyle without a decent planet to live on.”