MINUTES ARE PASSING BY
How many more news need to warn and make us aware that the situation is horrible, minutes are going, that we have a limited time!? How many studies need to inform us that we are destroying the place we live in? How much more time do we as humans need that we have our last chance to initiate something positive and essential for the environment that we are living in?
Ilustration: Argjira Kukaj
I had a stressful day, I went out to walk and calm down. I am walking, and with every step I see a pile of garbage. I say to myself, “these people, how don’t they feel bad about the place that they live in”. But, I notice that on that road, there is not a single trash can. I continue walking for a little more, hearing in the background the continual noise of cars. I hear some people cough from the smoke that had created a black cloud, which seemed like it wanted to suffocate our city. On the road, there is not a single part of greenery, no trees to calm you a bit. When I see them, they give me a bit of positivity and hope.
I return home, upset from what I saw even though this view has become an everyday thing, it felt like nothing new. But, everytime I see it, it lowers even that little hope I have that we could ever fix things. Everytime I see this situation, I understand nothing is changing. I get my phone to read the news, just to see articles like, “Earth has 50 years, till it is completely destroyed” or “Prishtina has gotten a higher level of air pollution”. I asked myself, these people, do they not read these news, these articles that are always voicing the danger that our country and the whole planet is in.
How many more news need to warn and make us aware that the situation is horrible, minutes are going, that we have a limited time!? How many studies need to inform us that we are destroying the place we live in? How much more time do we as humans need that we have our last chance to initiate something positive and essential for the environment that we are living in?
In Kosovo, there is a high deficit of awareness about pollution and global warming in general. This of course begins in schools, where they are missing a quality subject on environment. Sometimes at school we have had 3 trash cans in one classroom, to divide trash based on material. But due to lack of information on how to properly use them, students treated them as usual trash cans. I once heard a student asking her teacher, “Where should I throw this pen?” and the teacher replied “just throw it in one, they are the same”. Even though it was a very wrong answer, it was not entirely incorrect. In our country, we do not have a factory which divides trash on recyclables and non recyclables, so at the end of the day that teacher was not completely wrong, because even if in school we differentiate our trash, it will still end up in the same place. This made me understand how chained these problems are. The other chain issue appears in schools, because when there is no adequate environment education, these children grow up to be irresponsible citizens, who do not even think about the environmental problems that we are causing. According to a report of 2021 by UNDP Pulse titled “To what extent are we aware of the possible environmental threats on our health”, these statistics were released: 11.9% declared full awareness about these threats, 70.7% declared the have little knowledge on these threats and 17.4% declared they have no information about the possible threats on their health.
This situation that we are in is returning like a boomerang. Earth, our planet, through the burning of the Amazon forests, in Albania, USA, Turkey, floods in Europe, the melting of glaciers in Antarctica, is as if trying to remind us that we are in a dangerous situation. We as active citizens, Earth inhabitants, are one of the last hopes and we should initiate something immediately. We should be citizens that believe in science, and not like some who call global warming “ a myth”.
Together, we should take initiatives and attempt to raise awareness, starting from our families, our schools, our community and our country. Each individual has the power to use these minutes, in the good of the environment and create transformative changes in our country.
About the author: Era Thaqi, a 16 year old from Prishtina, follows classes in high school.
This grant is supported by the Balkan Trust for Democracy, a project of the German Marshall Fund of the United States
