April Fool to April Cool: Activists launch green drive

April 1 is generally associated with the concept of ‘April Fool’ but the youngsters and environmental activists have started spreading messages on social media that instead of ‘April Fool’ people should start spreading the concept of ‘April Cool’. They also advocated tree planting drives across the state to bring down global warming. 

Taking a cue from messages on social media, youngsters, who are the alumni of the Government Higher Secondary School in Alanganallur, decided to plant saplings around the Alanganallur Police station on Sunday. This message also went viral on social media and support gathered steam for the campaign.

As planned, the tree planting drive was undertaken on Sunday morning. Speaking to DT Next, Pon Kumar, an alumni of Alanganallur Government Higher Secondary School, said the summer temperature is soaring and it is becoming intolerable as days pass by. In the summer, the temperature would be so high and people would suffer a lot. 

So the April Cool campaign was given impetus by the alumni and the message was spread on their WhatsApp group. 

All the alumni members in various parts of the world were urged to plant trees wherever they could. 

When they decided to carry out the plantation drive, they sought to plant the saplings in a common place that was accessed by a large number of people on a daily basis. And so they selected the Alanganallur Police station. Initially, a cleaning process was carried out on Saturday with the help of earthmovers and pits were dug around the station. 

Well-grown saplings of neem, coconut and other common trees were planted around the station. 

They will help in maintaining the temperature somewhat low around the station even on summer days, said Pon Kumar. 

Similarly in Tenkasi, members of ‘The Indian Lighthouse Trust’ too started the ‘April Cool Day’ campaign by planting saplings at Sakthi Nagar. They said that from this year, April 1 should be celebrated as ‘April Cool’ day and not ‘April Fool’ day and on this day people should pledge to plant more trees to combat global warming and to protect the environment.