As Year 2009 exits and Year 2010 takes its turn, Family Media remains committed to caring for you by giving you hope, enlightenment and inspiration - what every Kenyan needs right now. Last year we witnessed people dying and losing their livestock because of the severe draught that ravaged our nation. This year has begun with further loss of lives, livestock and other property because of floods. What irony! Though the environment around us may be discouraging, all is not lost; there is hope!
All we need is to go back to the crossroads, identify the right path and take it. We should take these disasters as a signal that we have drifted off-course. And unless we consult our compass and readjust our sails, we are destined for dangerous waters where capsizing and drowning are imminent. Towards the end of last year, two topics dominated the headlines - the Mau Forest and the Copenhagen UN Climate Conference; one local and the other international with 192 countries represented. The heat generated by the two is a testimony of how critical our environment has become.
After God created everything, He beheld His six-day hardwork with pride because it was the paragon of perfection. "God saw all that He had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning-the sixth day" (Gen 1:31). In pursuit of our human interests and construction of our "Towers of Babel", we have forgotten our mandate to care for what God created. As a result, we have been authoring our own destruction. But we are not destroyed yet and God has, in His magnanimity, given us a chance to reform and change our ways.
When we talk of global warming and its consequences, the question you may ask yourself is: "What is my role in all this?" You may not fully understand what the Un Climate Convention, the Four Political Essentials and the Kyoto Protocol are all about (or even where to find Copenhagen or Kyoto!). You may not even know that the US and China are the leading environment polluters. But you should know the role you can play to save Mother Earth.
You could begin by taking our Environment and Mineral Resources Minister, Hon. John Michuki seriously when he says: "My ministry has established that if every Kenyan planted 10 trees in a year, we will recreate our lost forest cover in less than five years." And our Forestry and Wildlife Minister, Hon. Noah Wekesa tells us that his ministry has 50 million tree seedlings - waiting for you! And if you think that the ten trees (or even one) that you can plant may not make much difference, give some thought to this simple nursery rhyme:
If all men were one man, what a mighty man he would be! If all axes were one axe, what a mighty axe it would be! If all trees were one tree, what a mighty tree it would be! If all oceans were one ocean, what a mighty ocean it would be! If the mighty man took the mighty axe and cut down the mighty tree and let it fall into the mighty ocean, what a mighty splash there would be!!!
