What can You and I do?

I just came back from watching Avatar.

I walked into the theatre with many wonders why so many people rated this movie with full stars, why everyone's aftermath comment is "This is the best show I have watched in my entire life"... I walked inside there with only one thought - I want to know why movie critcs said this movie marks the turn for 3D movies (of course for the better) and what charms does this movie possessed.

My afterthoughts for the movie?

I wouldn't say that this is the best movie I had showed but it is ranked one of the most thought-provoking movies. It left me wonder what exactly can you and I, common people, do to save the earth?

What is James Cameron trying to tell us through Avatar?

It is not that we do not know that global warming is real, not that we do not know that the giant pandas are facing extinction because of the loss of their natural habitats, not that we do not know that more icebergs are found floating nearer to our land and further away from where they should rightfully be, not that we do not see and feel that the natural disasters are getting from bad to worse, getting more and more deadly...

I once told my students that I did not have an air-conditioner at home. The reply I got: Miss Tan, you do not belong to this era. Sad.

I saw another post on Facebook the other day, the post reads something like this: No air-con? Kill me! Sadder.

I seriously thought education is supposed to make us wiser.

Am I getting too old and disconnected with the world that it made me realised just how short-sighted some of us are? Or, just how comfortable some of us are that we are only concerned with things which impact us the most?

Just what exactly can we do if you love Avatar so much and that it made you recall that "Hey, we are all part of Mother Nature"? Will you still remember this movie and the message behind the movie after the theatres take this down?

And yeah, if you realised I typed "did" for the air-conditioner, we have joined the cult of owning one at home. To defend myself, I think I can live without the air-conditioner since I had been living without one for the past almost 30 years. I had afterall, turned on the air-conditioner less than 20 times in my new home of 1 year and I had it on at 25degC. Am I less sinful than those who turned the air-con on every other night for 2 hours to cool the room down and switched it off for the rest of the night?

I am still keeping my little recycling project of throwing the empty plastic and glass bottles into the recycle bins, my mother is doing that now too! I am saving the used papers for the bins too.

I had switched to carrying one recycle bag in my bag always, of course, one is very often not enough, I still use plastics bags... At least I try my best..

Are these efforts enough, at the micro level?

Not sure, but at least I am doing my part.

Come to think about it, I like to throw things away, is this sinful too? Maybe if there is less impulsive buying in the first place, I don't have to throw them away and waste resources. It all adds up, at the end of the day.

As an ex-physics teacher, I remembered that I taught this: Energy cannot be destroyed nor created, but converted from one form to another. I just hope that this hidden energy that we have thrown to our backyard (because it is out of sight, out of mind) and the uncounted amount of natural resources which we dig up to satisfy our need for continued growth, whether in developed or developing countries, will not end up as a backlash to eliminate our race and ends our time on this beautiful planet.

We have come so far as we progressed as a race - Internet, air-conditioner, motor vehicles are things we can't live without anymore, there is definitely no turning back to savage the damage we had done to our environment. Slow down? Perhaps... if there is enough time and if many of single individual starts to think deeply at how interlinked all of us are to nature. You may not feel or see it, because we are so sufficiently provided. Think harder, we form part of the chain, teacher taught us in primary school.

Impractical and not realistic? Maybe.

At least I am doing my tiny little part to do what I can to save the earth from my point of view.

So what can all of us do to save our land?

I guess it is all up to each of us to think and decide.

All actions have consequences.