Let the sky be blue again
By Fei Liena

BEIJING (Xinhua) -- “What is pink? A rose is pink, by the fountain's brink. What is red? A poppy's red, in its barley bed. What is blue? The sky is blue, where the clouds float thro'...”

Today if you sing that old nursery rhyme again, some children might correct you: “No, the sky is gray, not blue!”

That might sting you a little bit. Yes, our sky is no longer blue, but instead gray, brown, even black sometimes.

Nowadays, the sky in many places has been grayed by polluted air. One-tenth of the world's rivers and lakes have been darkened by industrial wastewater. From the North Pole to the South Pole, the Earth's temperature is rising at an alarming rate “thanks” to the unrestrained emission of carbon dioxide. All of these “masterpieces” are being done by human beings, and it's human beings who will bear the grave consequences.

Among the people, innocent children are the ones who suffer the most. Statistics show that every year, more than 3 million people die from air pollution, two-thirds of whom are children less than 5 years old.

More than 3.1 million people die from drinking unclean water every year, nearly 90 percent are children under five.

Environmentalist Rachel Carson said in her famous 1962 book “Silent Spring” that “to have risked so much in our efforts to mold nature to our satisfaction and yet to have failed in achieving our goal would indeed be the final irony. Yet this, it seems, is our situation. The truth, seldom mentioned but there for anyone to see, is that nature is not so easily molded...”

We can't change the past, yet we can design our future. Since Carson made her thought-provoking warnings heard around the world, more and more countries, governments, businesses and individuals have realized the dire urgency of environmental protection, and have speeded up their efforts to save the planet.

The heavily polluted River Rhine, once called the “European toilet,” has returned to life after decades of cleaning treatment, with water birds, and wild ducks playing in its crystal clear waters again.

The once “foggy city” of London has now made its appearance clear to its citizens and travelers, with Big Ben and Buckingham Palace shinning in the sunlight.

The ozone destroyer Freon has been eliminated, car gas emissions have been restrained, no more plastics, renewable energies are actively promoted, and more people are participating in environmentally friendly activities such as “car free day.” We are taking action to save our mother planet.

More and more children are being influenced by the “green idea.” By the Tuotuo river, source of the Yangtze River, children are forming different environmental protection teams to tell their neighborhoods about the importance of guarding water sources.

In an elementary school in Finland's Helsinki, children are learning to categorize garbage. In a primary school in a southern suburb of India's New Delhi, school children are showing off their paper planes and animal toys made from waste boxes.

We have taken action, but it is far from enough. Today roads are still jammed with cars, smoke still spills into the sky, polluted water still flows into oceans and rivers.

To avoid self-destruction, we human beings must do more, much more, and quickly, to save Earth, our only home

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