It Is All Up to You – Reflections from a Futue Blue Youth Council Member as She Ends Her Tenure
December 15, 2022Featured artwork: “Swimming with the Fishes” by Isabella Byabato (Mississippi, USA)
Two is one of the most fascinating numbers I have come to appreciate. Almost every principle functions in a pair: light and darkness, heads and tails, life and death… Life and death. The most simple, yet intriguing, paradox is that many life-giving elements can also serve as a means of destruction.
It is undoubtedly crucial to always pick the thing that allows the human race and every form of nature to flourish. Oil was made to power a car and get someone to work, a bride to her wedding, or a student to school, all which are important for humans. It was not made to suffocate sea creatures and lead to mass extinction.
Taking care of our environs is part of the race to maintain our lives. This world we live in functions in a beautiful, awe-inspiring way. When we lovingly tend to nature’s needs, we reap abundant positive results in the form of fewer natural disasters, more ecological diversity, renewable natural resources, and environmental justice. The earth functions like a computer—garbage input=garbage output. That’s why it’s important to plant the seed of sustainability in everything you do.
There is no point in working for a better tomorrow if this planet will be uninhabitable. Let us all strive to always take the right action with every instrument we use, and choose the most sustainable option. Remember, we are on earth to be faithful stewards. Wake up and make a choice: to use oxygen to kick-start your body, or to fire up a forest. At the end, you get to pick: life or death.
—Colletor Gumbo, 2022 Future Blue Youth Council Member
