Happy new year greetings!!

Dear Friends . .

I sincerely appreciate your efforts at taking care of the environment in 2015 in whichever way you made this possible.

Surely that's not all and its still work in progress. Our environment is what we borrowed from our children and the unborn generations so we have to give it to them as best as we can.

Remember it is borrowed and we should return it, I think, better than we've received it.

If you have made your resolutions for 2016 without considering the environment, then I believe you need to readjust.

If you are seeking for ways to do that let me make some suggestions to you.

Make your mind to:

1. Use less energy: this is aiming to use energy efficiently. Don't say you need to waste it even when it is not regular. Aim to switch off lights that are not in use. Ensure there is enough ventilation in your room. Space management helps to increase ventilation thus less energy.

2. Use clean alternative energy: electricity doesn't have to come from machines that burn fossil fuels. Alternative such as solar panels etc are readily available as they are getting less expensive. You can spread the panels where they can also serve as your roof or inlets for natural sunlight.

3. Support good and environmentally friendly ideas, policies, projects (eg Edwine Juma's tree planting campaign at http://
tinyurl.com/zl86lk7 or https://t.co/Z6pi2BjgtP) programmes: Become an advocate for ideas, policies, projects and programmes in your community, local government, state and nation at large. Plans and projects such as community tree planting, environmental auditing exercises, vehicles emissions testing, construction of bicycle lanes, etc.

4. Pull out from investments and companies whose operations are damaging the environment. Divestment actions would make companies and organisations more environmentally responsible. Report companies whose activities are damaging the environment your voice is your power.

Your environment is a powerful part of YOU!

5. Use bicycles, join public buses and car-pool: using bicycles, joining public buses and car pooling are environmentally friendly and reducing your carbon footprints.

6. Consume sustainably: Eat less meat, choose biodegradable materials for packaging (nylons aka leather) is destroying our earth at alarming rates. You can testify to the aesthetic nuisance/ pollution it causes. Buy organic items and don't make more food than fit your stomach and others you need to feed. Avoid food wastage. Reuse stuffs where applicable. Use water optimally.

7. Resolve to Be Responsible: Our children should live the life we dream for them in a healthy, disease and danger free environment thus the onus is on us to make responsible actions in protecting the environment.

8. Its a collective Responsibility so don't act alone. Involve others at your level of control and influence. Coming together is likely more effective in changing the systems and structures that are plaguing our environment and causing problems noted McKibben Bill.

From the fringes of the Icebergs and Arids in the North to the tip of Beaches and Mangroves down South. Environmental Protection is our responsibility. 
Be involved.

Joyous 2016
***********
By Oluwaseun,
Nigerian Environmentalist