NEW DELHI: About a year ago, when 16-year-old Shazia Azmat Karim overheard her father, a doctor, talk to someone about his patient with a higher risk of cardiac arrest due to air pollution, the schoolgirl was intrigued by the information.
She read multiple studies pertaining to climate change, and did a thorough research on the subject. Realising the severity of the situation, she filed a petition ‘What we save, saves us’ on change.org. She addressed that petition to Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and to his deputy Manish Sisodia, who responded to it, accepting her ideas and suggestions to curb pollution.
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She told TNIE that she expected the government to take up sector-based policies. “The AQI went hazardous and schemes like Odd-Even seem to have a minor impact. There is a need for stricter policies and people’s cooperation as we are living in a gas chamber,” she said.
She has been trying to spread awareness among people by explaining to them about the limited resources.
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“According to various researches and studies done by UN, we will run out of water and there will be no clean air to breathe about 30 years from now. We all have plans for our career but major crisis awaits us. What are we working so hard for,” she questioned.
A class 11 Humanities student, Shazia wants to study environment psychology when she grows up.
“During summer, I switch on the AC for two hours only,” she said.
Shazia gave the example of Greta Thunberg, a girl of her age, who was talking about the issue on a global level. “In India, we have nobody talking about it,” she lamented.