live earth

when was the last time we had singers singing for a cause?

i remembered 'we are the world' (meant to raise funds for Ethiopia, 1985) and 'voices that care' (Operation Desert Storm, 1991). This year 2007, we had singers all over the world singing for our planet which is facing a climate crisis or global warming a more commonly used term i guess.

so in support of the event, everyone is encouraged to wear green. in my attempt to promote this awareness subtley, i asked BBWC for permission to get the whole unit to wear green last Friday. we had a small contest by awarding the best dressed to the theme a mystery prize which was a pair of movie tickets courtesy of JLoh.

the theme colour dressing was well received, we had almost everyone coming in every different shades of green anyone can think of. there was great team spirit! i think it was fun and i was glad i did something like that.

Live Earth may be over and perhaps whoever is reading would think that i'm a tad late to blog this. But seriously peepz, this is just the beginning. in fact, it better start now or else the death of our planet would prolly be speeding up.

i remembered when i was in Sec 1 or 2, global warming was already an issue. during that period, though not sure if it was due to my passion for doing my part in the conservation effort or that global warming was widely talked about. Or i happened to read the papers very often to research for my essays topics (i usually scored very high writing anything regarding the environment). it seemed to be a very common topic. i even remembered that i wrote some lyrics for a contest and the song was to be sung to the tune of 'i'd like to teach the world to sing'. Pity i can't remember the lyrics except the first sentence was 'i'd like to teach the world a song'.. and to my surprise, i won a pair of tickets to the now defunct FIRE disco (used to be the Zouk equivalent and most popular tea dance venue in those days) for the prize presentation, but i never went coz i'd prolly be killed by my mum if i went. hah!

yeah, those were the days when i was rather carefree and passionate doing the things i loved to do, except studying.

global warming then, was read but not felt.

these days, i read the papers less coz i do not have to write any more essays. Gone were the days where i'd do my part for the environment. the least i do is to try to throw recyclable rubbish in the right bin and use both sides of the paper print outs. that's about it. oh, i am a public transport user, so i guess that counts but that's coz i don't have a license.

anyway, global warming is coming back to haunt us and it's getting very real.

check out the weather these days and you will know how different it was from a decade ago.

we should supposedly experience loads of perspiration in the 'boiling' heat during the months of may and june and we could sorta gather some pattern and predict easily what the weather would be the day after or even the whole week. temperatures do not differ much and you'd prolly not get sloshed in the rain if you go to the beach during these months. These days, the weather's kinda hard to predict. even in the month of May and June we can get heavy downpours for a week and you can get sloshed when you are sun tanning.

so this is how real global warming is. seasonal patterns have changed. winter has either come earlier or later in some parts of the world. summer lasting longer. spring, later?

come to think of it, it's rather terrifying aint it?

we've got to do something today, right now in fact.

i started switching off my comp at home daily as well as my tv and hi-fi. i also take out the plug from the power point. the next time my room's light bulbs fused, i'll change them to energy conserving ones. i also try to make sure that i have in mind what i want to take out from the fridge before i go open it.

what i am doing is peanuts and it's not going to impact the world in a blink of an eye, but i guess every effort counts, one way or another.

i didn't catch the whole 24 hours of Live Earth and i read that the actual turnout in some stadiums were pathetic and some countries even had to cancel the performance. I realised there wasn't exactly a theme song, (unless the one that Madonna was singing which they kept playing after the end of a short film is the theme song) i guess we don't really need one. what is important is that this has sparked off some form of awareness and people are really going to do something about it.

i think instead of showing the artistes singing, i'd rather they show the short films throughout. those are the things that drive people to think, the impact definitely greater. if you had seen it, you'd know what i mean.

the one that really got my attention was the penguin standing on a big piece of ice which broke away from the bigger piece of ice and started floating in the ocean. it got smaller and smaller. in the end the ice and the penguin reached this thing that looks like a toy boat but is actually the wind vane at the top of the building. The penguin decided to take a dip and guess what, there's a whole city under the sea.

get the drift?

in any case, change your habit to do your part for the environment.

ANSWER THE CALL

save mother nature, save ourselves

(i remembered this was the slogan we came up with for a project during secondary school days)