Environmental Awareness – UPSC

• Environmental awareness is an understanding of the natural environment and of the choices that either promote its well-being or harm it.
  • It means grasping how fragile the environment is and why it needs protection.
  • It also includes the recognition that the earth itself needs protecting if life on it is to last.
• Spreading it is a simple route to environmental stewardship: each aware person helps secure a better future for coming generations.
• Environmentalism is the ideology behind this concern. It holds that humans have a necessity and a responsibility to respect, protect and preserve the natural world from anthropogenic (human-caused) harm.
  • Practised on a large scale, it is among the best ways to counter the damage done by human decisions and to reverse the decline in the planet’s health.

Meaning and Growth of Awareness

Key Terms

• Environment: the word comes from the French for “to surround”. It is the sum of the physical, biological and social conditions around an organism at a given place and time.
  • Physical environment: solid, liquid and gas, the realms of the lithosphere, hydrosphere and atmosphere.
  • Biotic environment: plants and animals, humans included. Humans shape their surroundings through technology, and in doing so disturb both the living and the non-living parts.
• Pollution: any change in air, water or land, in their make-up or living content, that does harm. Raymond F. Dasmann (1975) tied it to ecosystem capacity: substances or energy build up faster than ecosystems can neutralise or disperse them.
  • In India, fast population growth, urbanisation, industrialisation and poverty are usually listed among the causes of environmental pollution.
• Awareness and education: awareness is the first step in a longer chain. The Tbilisi Declaration (1977) placed it ahead of knowledge, attitudes, skills and participation, the objectives of environmental education.

How Awareness Grew

• Global landmarks:
  • Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (1962) exposed the damage done by pesticides such as DDT.
  • The first Earth Day (22 April 1970), driven by the United States Senator Gaylord Nelson, drew an estimated 20 million Americans.
  • The Stockholm Conference (1972) put the environment on the global agenda and created the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). It also gave rise to World Environment Day on 5 June.
  • The Bhopal gas disaster (2–3 December 1984) and Chernobyl (1986) showed the public what industrial failure can do.
  • The 2030 Agenda (2015) made awareness a target in its own right: Target 12.8 asks that people everywhere have the information and awareness for sustainable lifestyles by 2030.
• Indian landmarks:
  • The Bishnoi sacrifice at Khejarli (1730), led by Amrita Devi, is often cited as an early conservation movement.
  • Van Mahotsava (1950) was started to make people aware of the value of planting trees.
  • The Chipko movement (1973) in the Garhwal Himalaya remains the classic case of public awareness about forests. The Appiko movement (1983) carried the idea to the Western Ghats of Karnataka.
  • The 42nd Amendment (1976) added Article 48A (the State’s duty) and Article 51A(g) (the citizen’s duty) to protect the environment.
  • The Silent Valley campaign in Keralam (Kerala) ended with a national park in 1984.
  • The Supreme Court’s orders in M.C. Mehta v. Union of India (1991, 2003, 2004) treated awareness as a legal obligation, requiring environment messages in cinemas and on broadcast media, and compulsory environmental education in schools.
• Place shapes concern. Public attention usually follows the problem people live with:
  • Himalaya and Western Ghats: forests and slopes.
  • Narmada valley: dams and displacement.
  • Delhi NCR and the Gangetic plain: winter smog.
  • Damodar, Yamuna and Ganga basins: river pollution.
  • Coasts: cyclones, sea-level rise and marine litter.

Problems That Awareness Must Address

• Countering today’s environmental problems starts with knowing the main sources of harm.

Oil Drilling and Fossil Fuels

• Modern economies depend heavily on fossil fuels, which makes these fuels one of the top contributors to environmental harm.
  • Oil spills and offshore drilling destroy marine life and release toxins into land and water.
  • Burning oil raises atmospheric carbon dioxide, which drives global warming and ocean acidification.
• In India, poor fuel quality and the rapid growth of vehicles have long been among the chief reasons for high air pollution, along with old process technology in small industry.
  • Steps taken include unleaded petrol (all vehicles in Delhi from September 1998), lower sulphur in diesel, compressed natural gas for public transport and stricter emission norms.

Deforestation

• Forests are cut for human benefit, and wildlife pays for it. As large tracts are cleared, animals lose their habitat, their chances of survival fall sharply, and extinctions follow.
• The scale is measured in millions of hectares: the world lost about 10.9 million hectares a year to deforestation in 2015–25, and about 4.12 million hectares a year net after forest gains (Food and Agriculture Organization, Global Forest Resources Assessment 2025).
• India’s position: forest and tree cover stands at 25.17% of the geographical area (India State of Forest Report 2023), against the one-third goal of the National Forest Policy.
• Forests give more than timber. They reduce soil erosion, moderate floods, slow the spread of deserts, add humus to soil and soften extremes of climate. Their loss sets off a chain reaction across the ecosystem, as set out under deforestation and conservation.
• People’s participation is central to forest conservation, since a piecemeal approach cannot solve a national problem.
  • The National Forest Policy, 1988 called for a massive people’s movement with the involvement of women.
  • Social forestry seeks to reduce pressure on natural forests by raising fuelwood, fodder and grass with local communities.

Plastic Goods Production

• Much of the waste that harms the planet comes from plastic consumption.
  • Bottles: about one million plastic bottles were sold every minute worldwide, or some 480 billion in 2016 (Euromonitor).
  • Recycling: of all plastic waste generated up to 2015, about 91% had never been recycled; 9% was recycled and 12% burnt (Roland Geyer and colleagues, 2017).
  • Oceans: an estimated 4.8–12.7 million tonnes of plastic entered the sea in 2010, the source of the often-quoted 8 million tonnes a year (Jenna Jambeck and colleagues, 2015).
• Energy and feedstock: making plastic uses fossil feedstocks and energy, which adds to air and water pollution. In the United States, about 191 million barrels of liquefied petroleum gases (LPG) and natural gas liquids (NGL) were used for plastics in 2010, the last year for which an estimate is quoted from the Energy Information Administration.
• India: plastic waste came to about 4.13 million tonnes in 2022–23, and identified single-use plastic items have been banned since 1 July 2022.
  • The sinking of the container ship MSC Elsa 3 off Kerala on 25 May 2025 spread plastic pellets along the coast, and pellets also reached the Gulf of Mannar and Sri Lanka.
• Global talks: the negotiations on a plastics treaty ended without agreement at Busan (December 2024) and Geneva (August 2025). Formal talks are due to resume in March 2027.

Importance of Environmental Awareness

• Greenhouse gases keep rising. An older measure put the rise at more than a third since the Industrial Revolution. The World Meteorological Organization now reports carbon dioxide at 426.8 ppm in 2025, 53% above its level of 1750, with methane 167% and nitrous oxide 26% above theirs (Greenhouse Gas Bulletin No. 22).
  • Global temperature in 2025 stood about 1.43°C above the 1850–1900 average (State of the Global Climate 2025).
• As gases and temperatures rise, a chain of consequences follows:
  • Water and fire: melting glaciers and severe droughts bring water shortages and a higher risk of wildfires.
  • Coasts: rising seas bring coastal flooding, especially in Florida and around the Gulf of Mexico, and press on low-lying tracts such as the Sundarbans. The sea rose by 4.75 mm a year in 2012–25, against 2.65 mm a year in 1993–2011.
  • Farms and cities: more pests, heat waves and heavy downpours in forests, farms and cities can damage or destroy agriculture and fisheries.
  • Living systems: coral reefs are lost faster, and plants and animals become extinct at a higher rate.
  • Health: allergies, asthma and infectious diseases rise, with more pollen-producing ragweed, more air pollution, and better conditions for pathogens and mosquitoes.
• Air quality is a direct cost of neglect. Without awareness and early action, everyone breathes increasingly poor air, and serious health problems follow.
  • Air pollution was linked to about 7.9 million deaths worldwide in 2023, and to more than 2 million in India (State of Global Air, 2025).
  • It harms more than health: it corrodes metals and buildings and damages crops and plants.
  • In rural India, smoke from wood and dung burnt in unventilated kitchens makes indoor air a serious hazard.
• Laws and programmes need an informed public.
  • Standards under the Air Act (1981) and the Environment (Protection) Act (1986) mean little unless people demand that they be met.
  • Environmental clearance includes a public hearing, which works only if local people understand what is at stake.
  • Under the National Clean Air Programme (2019), a Lok Sabha reply reported that 103 of 130 cities had lower PM10 levels in 2024–25, and that 22 met the national standard. Sustained public pressure helps keep such targets in view.
• Awareness is not the same as action, or as accurate knowledge. In a 2025 survey by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication and CVoter:
  • about 90% of Indians were worried about global warming, yet only 53% said they knew at least “something” about it;
  • 84% thought plastic pollution causes global warming, although it is not a major source of greenhouse gases.

How to Promote Environmental Awareness

Days, Campaigns and Public Programmes

• Earth Day falls on 22 April every year, but the health of the planet needs awareness on every other day of the year as well.
• World Environment Day falls on 5 June and is led by UNEP. In 2026 it focused on climate action, with Azerbaijan as host.

• Mission LiFE (Lifestyle for Environment), launched at Kevadia on 20 October 2022, promotes 75 actions under seven themes: save energy, save water, reduce single-use plastic, adopt sustainable food systems, reduce waste, reduce e-waste and adopt healthy lifestyles.
• Other public programmes:
  • Eco-clubs of the National Green Corps in schools.
  • Ek Ped Maa Ke Naam (tree planting, from June 2024).
  • The Green Credit Programme (October 2023), which rewards voluntary environmental action.
• Public information on pollution:
  • The National Air Quality Index (2014) turns eight pollutants into one number and colour band.
  • Air quality data are shown on electronic displays and carried by newspapers and the internet.
  • Regular reports and statistics on air and water quality are published by the pollution control boards.
  • Newsletters, pamphlets, television, radio, workshops, exhibitions and pollution control camps carry messages on vehicle emissions.
• Non-governmental organisations are encouraged to build mass awareness, and citizens, industries and hospitals are asked to work with municipal bodies on waste segregation.

What Individuals Can Do

• Go paperless. Online services are eco-friendly and cut the paper needed for bills and reminders, so choose paperless billing where possible.
• Teach children. One of the most effective ways to prevent future damage starts at home.
  • Teach the three Rs: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, and the importance of keeping the earth clean.
  • Children who take up these habits early carry them into adult life, which improves the planet’s prospects.
• Support a cause. Giving time or money to a cause that promotes a greener environment helps the planet and gives the giver the satisfaction of having contributed.
• Adopt green habits. Buy more reusable items and recycle.
  • Using fewer plastic water bottles cuts one’s carbon footprint.
  • Plastic bottles take hundreds of years to decompose in landfills. Aluminium or glass bottles free up landfill space and help keep the air cleaner.