Students across the region debate environmental issues

The earth as we know it is at a crossroads and could be destroyed by humanity within just 50 years, said Secretary-General of the Royal Charity Organisation of Bahrain Dr Mustafa Al Sayed at the Ninth Inter-college Public Speaking Competition held in Dubai last week.
Speaking to Campus Notes on what he personally learned as a judge of students’ in-depth presentations on topics such as ‘economy versus ecology’ and ‘carbon trading’ he said: “I have learnt a lot from the students. Within 50 years we may destroy what has taken Mother Nature hundreds of millions of years to create.” He praised the students’ passion for the topic of climate change.

Raising awareness
Held under the patronage of Shaikh Nahyan Bin Mubarak Al Nahyan, Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research, and organised by the Emirates Environmental Group (EEG), this year’s competition saw participation from 49 universities from countries spanning the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).
Aimed not only at honing students’ research and public speaking skills the competition also hopes to educate the youth on the importance of environmental integrity. “The young people have a special interest and a special role to play in maintaining a healthy and safe environment,” said Habiba Al Marashi, chairperson of the EEG, “because they will be the ones to inherit it.”

Tipping the scales
The team from BITS Pilani Dubai researched their chosen topic of Economy versus Ecology: Keeping the Ecosystem in Balance for two months and evidently learnt a great deal. “What I found is that the more damage we do to the environment, we will have to end up paying for it in terms of actual currency,” said Saurabh Ladha, 18.
Giving the example of a jungle sustaining and balancing itself, he said humans think they are being intelligent, “but we are not being intelligent enough”.
Ladha added that as inhabitants of the earth, humans are not doing enough to maintain an environmental balance. “We are looking at the situation from one side and we have yet to gain a level of aptitude to manage to keep the balance.”