Sunday Nov 16, 2025
Sunday Nov 16, 2025
Saturday, 20 September 2025 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
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| If the planet is healthy, we are |
By Surya Vishwa
September 16 is the day designated by the United Nations to annually honour the preservation of the ozone layer. This day was proclaimed to be dedicated to create public awareness on the ozone layer and its significance to human existence, in the year 1994. The decision to create a separate day for the protection of the ozone layer was linked to the signing of the Montreal Protocol on substances that deplete the ozone layer, way back in 1987.
The ozone layer can be described as the skin of nature that protects all of life.
The theme of the 2025 World Ozone Day is ‘From Science to Action.’
It is now common knowledge that our planet is under threat from urbanisation, plastic, pesticide, weedicide, chemical fertiliser, poisonous industry wastes of various sorts, deforestation and the drying up/poisoning of water resources. Nations came together through the Vienna Convention in 1985 and the Montreal Convention in 1987 to prompt heads of countries to take action to heal the invisible skin of the earth so that we may not perish.
We are now told that this earth may have resources only up to 2050 and that the planet will not be habitable if we do not awake to the mindless life of modernity we have crafted – that has heavily cost us the only home we have. (No, we cannot migrate to the Moon or Mars). It is now clearly a matter of life or death. If the planet is healthy, we are. If we bow to the earth as our ancestors did and learn how they respected the soil and created a truly eco-friendly system of life, then we are ready to begin the journey of authentic healing. Human healing – whether from financial scarcity, depression, mental illness or physical ailments is directly linked to a pure and healthy earth-body. Let this ozone layer commemoration that was on September 16 remind us that every single minute of every single day – 365 days – and not one day, should be our Ozone Layer Day. Climate destruction happens on all these days, not just one. We are within the skin of the earth – the ozone layer – and no matter how much of beauty treatments we place on our human cover – if this earth skin is affected then so is ours.
We are not just upon the earth. We are the earth because we are enshrouded by it and when we depart we merge with it, either as ash or soil. Thus, we, who claim so much superiority from the perch of our little brick made institutions purportedly dedicated to ‘education,’ should know and return to the common sense that we cannot poison the earth and expect the miracle of health – or either the earth or ourselves. Of course a pristine earth is going to eliminate a certain type of industries along with the evil cycle of making money out of human misery. But there are always multiple paths to heal the ozone layer, the Earth and all living beings and also make money – non harming enterprises from an authentic and holistic value system can be created. Imagine living in a forested earth as the article by Ranjit Seneviratne suggests. This should be the path of the youth of this world. Let this Ozone Layer Day that was commemorated last Tuesday remind us of the vast potential that is ahead of us to heal our ‘earth shield – our earth skin’ and thereby ourselves and live healthy, happy and peaceful lives as opposed to a sick, fragmented and warped existence.
