Wednesday, April 22, 2009 @ 3:08 AM: It's Earth Day
It's Earth Day!
Yups... this blog entry comes at a time when everyone is studying really hard for exams, and even the slackest guy i think would be starting to prepare for the exams... and studying can come in a lot of ways too... picnic studying, sunbathing studying, chillout studying (these two are ironic, but i do see wines and books on the same table), library studying (hmm i spotted kim in the library and she happily daoed my message), comp room studying (a certain bunch of pple, hehe me included, hiding in some small comp room)...
And still the slackiness in me never fades. A comp in front of me essentially will wander me off to somewhere in the world of MSN, looking at the pple signing in and out, hoping to catch some of the perpetual absentees online... or somehow drifting to the whole of facebook, where u simply can't differentiate guys from gals, which sch u were supposed to be from... or the soccernet and the soccer tvs, where u might get disappointed from a lame penalty kick...
Somehow today is a different occasion. I clicked on the eco emails sent out by facebook (usually they will come in twos or threes due to the different grps in eco i joined, like the main grp, the pubs grp and the earth hour grp... and somehow i would start to ignore them as they simply asked for volunteers when i'm clearly not able to help physically back in Singapore)... and there I started to read about the eco publications once again (somehow it brings a different perspective esp when i re-read kenneth's perspective on doing ur part for the Earth and still a touching essay by another volunteer on being the leader for environmental change...)...
And the reading doesn't stop here... perhaps just as my eagerness to know about the current affairs back in Singapore blew up so greatly that I spent the entire morning re-reading the Straits Times pages... the eagerness to know about how the Earth Hour had been conducted (which was a month back), how the environmental scene in Singapore is evolving, and also about the environmental scene back in Cambridge (where there is still a certain level of guilt level involved that i have clamped down so much of my environmental involvement here)... and of course, as usual, I would go back to my bed, sit, and reflect on my stand for the environment on such a day (hmm if shaoming u are reading this, i'm sorry to have told u the wrong date)
In fact, to be honest, I'm not those activists u would imagine proclaiming about the effects of global warming, how each year the amount of temperature rise would result in how much of agricultural loss in output, how much of the inland coasts would be flooded, how much weather changes that the place would undergo (just like how our LBK talked abt ireland, which i found quite relevant)... cos after all, some activists have tried to paint such a picture, without themselves knowing much abt the implication of the meaning behind global warming... where it is more of the global change in weather patterns that would disrupt our lifestyle cycles, and it is not something we could say "stop light for an hour", or "abolish private transport for a day" could help averse the situation.
Rather, my stand has always stemmed from the fact that sustainable lifestyles shld be led in order to achieve an equilibrium with nature. Well, it is hard to even define "sustainable lifestyle", the key word that I have emphasised month after month in the volunteer induction programmes... cos what does it take to be sustainable?
For example, using paper and recycling them is effectively not sustainable as the process of recycling would use a lot of water and energy in producing the paper... on the other hand, afforestation is not sustainable as the paper has to be discarded somehow and waste is a big issue these days... Another example could be about the argument of biofuels (a fuel that one sponsor was kind enough to offer during our organisation of re-live) and hydrogen fuel (a fuel that i have insisted the way to go during the apec conference) is similar... for biofuels, it is claimed to be from natural sources, and can be qualifed as "sustainable", but in itself, the production is questioned to be sustainable in the first place, and can only play a small role in the long run (more of a 'hype' rather than distinct possibility to come)... while hydrogen fuel is an expensive technology these days, thus rendering it economically unsustainable...
So what constitutes sustainable living? one must wonder... good question, cos I can't be sure, and I have just received an email from the college mails that UNEP is trying to define sustainable as well... cos it can't simply be on the level of sustainable for our own... rather the word is being RESPONSIBLE for your own consumption. Perhaps someone could get inspired and write a short prose regarding the everyday responsible actions that one could contribute for the betterment of our environment... And this responsibility stems from education, from inspiring the younger generations and from there influencing everyone to change their lifestyles in their own ways...
I recalled the days when we were organising the environmental forum, and some grps made a very strong stand on some ideas and it was sad to be an observer to see a several few good ideas being overshadowed by 'better ideas' better phrased and crafted... And somehow I'm always very irritated by how some pple who will never fail to quote u statistics and esp from the IPCC panel while not having a good idea about the direction to look forward to...
The situation needs us to take a lot of concerted efforts to make things happen and being clear-headed about what you do, and without ourselves ever realising that hey it works... cos after all, it takes a lot of cycles and generations for the changes to see significant progress on the global scale...
And on this note happy Earth Day everyone!!
*On side note, I'm so envious of keting who gets to take part in the international water conference!! and so sian that i'm gotta give some events a miss due to clashing of schedules!! but seriously i can't wait to go back and see yingzhen and zhikai leading the VMD team, catching up with all my eco friends and perhaps talking to new volunteers, talking to wilson who has never failed to pop on msn and catch up on how i'm doing, and also making up bday celebrations for hanjie and dianne whose bday i've missed!!
[Haha... this is purely very much an envt post, tml (hopefully) will be updating about my lent term + break before embarking on the most terrorful term, EASTER!]
thank you for bringing me memories...
