Understanding Our Responsibility of Raising Environmental Awareness

Environmental awareness is defined as being mindful of your choices that may or may not harm the natural surroundings. From there, you’ll better understand the so-called environmentalist movement, which is a trend of adopting an eco-friendly lifestyle to mitigate the planet’s fragility. 

The main tenets of this movement are to respect, protect, and preserve nature. You can start by sharing this ideology with your friends and family and educate them on how to fix the problems and threats caused by human activities.

Raising awareness requires a commitment to one’s behavior and participation in various advocacies like knowing how to conserve energy and getting rid of pollution emissions and waste.

Let's learn more about environmental awareness.

Why is Environmental Awareness is Important?

To know how to defy severe environmental risks against human health

Some of the most excruciating threats posed by humans to the environment are burning fossil fuels, deforestation, overpopulation, and pollution. Most of us probably don’t know that these actions lead to climate change, contaminated water, and soil erosion.    

To change our awful behavior that affects the environment

It is part of our lifestyle to buy luxurious cars, houses, and high-tech gadgets. However, the material components used to make these products such as manufactured plastic and metals dramatically impact nature through overconsumption and deforestation. That’s why there is an urge for the public to help revert these impacts by sharing knowledge before we reach extinction.

To take responsibility for conserving the environment

Awareness-building is everyone’s responsibility. We should strive to perform this duty until we become successful in creating a brighter future for our children and the next generations.

Ways to Promote Environmental Awareness

Whether you’re a working individual or a student, you can increase awareness through simple efforts. Here are some steps you can do to help:

Going “Green” 

This means living a responsible life by making decisions ecologically. It also entails living a lifestyle that will contribute to Earth’s protection, preservation, and restoration.

Recycling 

This is the most common and effective method to reduce waste. You can encourage your friends and colleagues to be eco-friendly by utilizing reusable items instead of throwing them away.

In Hong Kong alone, the estimated plastics disposed of every week have reached 46.4 million. This shocking data also shows that the country’s recycling rate appears to be low and most of these inorganic wastes end up in landfills. This is why you should choose to reuse things like cups, containers, and soda bottles.  

Unplugging appliances when not in use

Have you left your computers on standby overnight, tried opening the fridge for a longer period of time, or left your devices plugged in even though they’re not in use? These are the common practices that bring convenience to us, but the truth is, it hurts the environment a lot.

To set a good example, make a habit of conserving energy by turning off all electrical appliances and lights at home when not in use or before leaving the office when you’re working.

Benefits of Environmental Awareness

The advantages of being fully educated when it comes to environmental issues will allow you to reap a lot of benefits and help your children become responsible adults in the coming years.

Improves healthier habits

The “healing power” of nature helps children to improve their well-being as outdoor activities can help boost their physical and mental health.

Teaches children respect for nature

Aside from becoming responsible citizens, understanding the essence of environmental respect allows them to know nature's beauty. 

Boosts the ability to become a critical thinker

This life skill is necessary for children so they can make well-informed decisions and evaluate a certain situation relative to their natural surroundings.