Seven Billion Dreams. One Planet. Consume With Care.
When I was a child, I lived in a village with 300 neighbors where many goats and oxen were herded and they passed in front of my house every morning and afternoon. They did not forget to leave the dirt in the front yard of my home. I wanted to experience a better life by studying and living in a capital city, Jakarta. Gratefully, I am here. I meet a lot of unique people, wonder fascinating skyscrapers, experience culture blend and taste delicious foods. I found them in One City. Those things make me fall in love with Jakarta.
“I see One City today but I believe that it happens in One Planet.”
Jakarta is a home to the 15 million residents by 2015 according to the Indonesia Central Bureau of Statistics (BPS). The longer I stay here, the more pressing challenges I find to solve. In the morning on my way to work by train, I almost missed the third train because I could not get on the train. It had been full, no space to enter. When I was in the train, I used to scrutinize the long queue of cars and motorcycles waiting for the green traffic light. And then I got off the train, I started walking to the office. Many beggars sit across the street, hoping the mercy of the pedestrians. Cheerful kids played their guitar and sang songs to catch our attention while holding a small box expectantly to be filled with some money. I arrived in the office and watched the severe flood in some areas of Jakarta. After that, lunch came. My friends ordered a lot of foods; steamed rice, baked fish, vegetables, pizza, gorengan (fried foods) and many more. All of us had been full. Many foods remained. Then we threw away the leftovers to the trash bin. I wished that we would buy more foods if we could not eat them up. It was 5 pm and it meant time to go home. The street was so crowded. Vehicle emission made me cough. As usual, I had to queue for the train. On my way home, I saw a mother and a baby sleeping well. No blankets. Only a food wrapper and a bottle of water were available just next to them. I gulped. I arrived at home with a lot of lessons to learn. I went to the bed and turned off the light. I could not close my eyes. I saw One City today but I believed that it happened in One Planet.
The population of Indonesia is estimated at 300 billions by the end of 2015 by BPS. It is equivalent to 3.49% of the total world population. Indonesia ranks number 4 in the list of countries by population. Known as an agricultural country, Indonesia still needs to import many essential food items such as rice from Thailand, soybean from India, peanut from Australia, etc. Indonesia must boost its food production, press the number of population or control the population consumption?
Most of Indonesians eat rice three times a day. How many kg of rice does someone need a day? a month and a year? and what about 300 billion Indonesians? The graphic above proves us that we must control the way we eat. The high consumption of our lifestyle will affect our future. The food production pattern is unbalanced with the demand. We need more rice fields to plant rice, fertilizer to enrich the soil and favorable climate to grow the seeds.
“Many people out there are starving…”
Perhaps you and I sometimes buy more foods and leave the remains. But many people out there struggle too hard to be able to eat for one time a day. We can go to restaurants, eat delicious foods, take pictures of the foods and upload them to social media. But many people out there are starving because they have not eaten today or even in the last two days.
© The University of Texas at Austin
The increasing number of population in the world has never been controlled for recent years. Around seven billion people need to eat. While now, the food production must be truly improved to feed us. Many harvests fail, climate changes and agricultural lands convert into housing. Nowadays, the conversion of the use of agricultural land to residential and industrial is common. Almost every country in the world has serious problems with this conversion. We lack of farming land to grow plants for our sustainable consumption. The demand for food is rising each year but the land to produce the foods is decreasing. How could we provide foods for these 7 billion people? and even for 9,6 billion people by 2050 if our current consumption and production patterns remain the same? There will be more and more people who do not have foods and starve to death. Additional to that, the data from World Wildlife Fund says that forest conversion involves removing natural forests to meet other land needs, such as plantations, agriculture, pasture for cattle settlements and mining. This process is usually irreversible. Conversion of forests -from South America’s tropical forests to Russia’s temperate forest- to meet worldwide demand for consumer products is leading to deforestation and a range of ecological and social impacts.
“Around seven billion people need to eat”.
Today, 15% of the world population living in high-income countries is responsible for 56% of world consumption, while 40% of the poorest people, who live in low-income countries, is responsible for only 11% of consumption worldwide. While most people consume more today -thanks to the expansion of the world economy in the 90′s and rising living standards in many countries-the average consumption of an African family is 20% smaller than it was 25 years ago. It is projected that world population will reach about 8 billion people in 2025 and 9.3 billion by 2050. This increasing population combined with improved living standards, particularly in developing countries, will an enormous strain on the distribution of land, water, energy and other natural resources.
One Action for One Planet.
We must start to act a better way of our lifestyle for a healthy future. Let us start to eat responsibly from ourselves.
Support Local. Shorter distance requires less transport fuels and less chemicals need to keep food fresh.
Eat less meat. Meat production is very resources-intensive.
Eat sustainable fish. many wild fish stocks are at the risk of disappearing entirely.
Choose organic. Less use of fertilizers and pesticides protects the environment and our health!
Avoid packaging. Packaging requires energy and resources just to end up in the trash.
There are many better ways for us to solve on of these big global challenges. From the way we consume and the plastics resulted from the foods wraps we buy. Here is a sample video of innovative way about food wraps and plastics that will change our perspectives about them.
© United Nations University
We are the only one that can solve this challenge. Because we are the first generation to feel the impact of unsustainable consumption and the last generation that can do something about it.
Let us make our voice heard for a better world in the World Environment Day 2015 by posting our status with hashtag #WED2015.
This blog is made to join the World Environment Day 2015 Blog Competition held by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). Thank you for voting.
