Sunday 15 July 2007

Irony Is The Main Component Of The Earth

Live Earth, goodness. I missed the whole thing. Considering that all of it was on Channel 5, it was a miracle I didn't catch a glimpse of famous people reminding us to protect the environment. (Oh yah, I saw 2 movies that weekend and was out late that Saturday night. And woke at 2pm, apparently after a swig of milk before sleep).

After my recent posting on Greenland, you might have been waiting (or not) for my two cents on Live Earth. Here's my beef about the whole thing (I don't eat beef BTW): Way too many resources went into putting the message across. It wasn't good for the Earth in any way. All that trash that was left behind, all that electricity that went into amplifying sound and lighting lamps, all those plants that were stomped on, all that heat generated by so many people being together...

Did all those people, all the millions across the world who attended and jumped up and down, really care about the Earth? Did Madonna, Rihanna and Linkin Park get into the green bit of the grey matter? I dunno man. Did we go home and switch lightbulbs, turn off all electrical appliances we didn't use, stop the NTUC cashiers from being generous with plastic bags? Yes, no? No.

How like that? Singaporeans thrive on air-conditioning and water heaters. We love separating our BreadTalk buns with individual polyethylene bags (all the other bakeries I know are threatened by the 'clean' packaging and have followed suit in the quest to suffocate the Earth with plastic bags. Stoopid.) There are more cars on the street that ever before. More buildings are going up in the places where there was once beautiful grass and trees (Orchard MRT park and the space in front of Tanjong Pagar Hawker Centre are cases in point). Our need for money and comfort is going to drive the Earth to the grave.

OK, one step at a time. Less paper, less plastic. Come on, you can do it too.

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