In Continuum.

For Twenty Four Hours

There is a limit to how much a person can hope for in the most bleak of situations. There is a point whereby even the most hopeful individuals are going to sit down and say," OK, we have been defeated". Because there is no point holding on to a fool's hope, to have your thoughts devoted to a certain belief that may never come true. Somewhere down your path of hope, you will start to question and doubt the reasons behind certain issues, why were things done in the very first place. And when you come right down to it, all the questions then become clouded with even more questions, and everything becomes a giant mambo-jumbo of contradiction.

It seems to be a trend these days to go green, and everybody is in it. A certain fashion brand in Taiwan released a eco-friendly bag that reads "I am not a plastic bag" on its side. It caused quite an uproar in the malls there, with people queuing up days on end just to get their hands on those bags. That is not to forget the Live Earth event that just ended a couple of days ago, with confetti raining down upon the stadiums all around the world, with the cheering of the crowd surging through the night air, so full of triumph and confidence to conquer global warming. I watched it with my own eyes, as Al Gore took the stage at the Giants Stadium and asked everybody to fight the planet crisis with our heads and hearts. The crowd cheered some more, and for a moment there was an illusion of grandeur, of hope, of something good finally happening - a revolution.

However, as the confetti settled and the artistes left the stage, as the crowd began to leave the concert venues and the drumming voices that echoed around the stadium walls died, the death of a hope that once was laid in sight. An article I read online was about the aftermath of the Live Earth concerts, and it was talking about the amount of trash found at the venues after the concerts. At least the Japanese crowd volunteered to stay back and clear the trash, while the audiences from everywhere else just couldn't care less. Much of the trash collected were non-biodegradable, and I wonder what must have went through Al Gore's mind when he saw the piece of news on TV. After all the months of preparations and all the lessons being shown, I guess at the end of the day everybody was just there for the music and the partying, not so much about the next generation of humans that will inhabit our damaged world.

The truth is, as I laid in my bed on Saturday night watching the Live Earth concerts, there was a raging storm inside of me that told me of better things to come. I'm sure nobody in Singapore watched more of Live Earth than myself that night, as I stayed up all the way till 6am to watch John Mayer at the Giants Stadium. There was a sense of hope inside of me, like the war horns before a battle begins. It was cheering myself on, telling myself that I was part of a revolution, one that will eventually change the course of mankind somehow. Like I said in the previous entry, it wasn't so much about whether or not it will work or not, but the effort in trying that is the most important. I truly believed in that fact, and also believed that the result of the concerts cannot be determined two hours after they conclude, because this is not an overnight thing, you won't see the result until they are accumulated fifty years down the road.

However, seeing how fast our Earth is plunged back to Eco-Hell, you start to wonder what the twenty-four hours concerts were for, why we were all so hopeful about a new beginning. I'm not sure how much people have been affected around the world, how much of their mentality has been changed because of the messages brought forth in the concerts. But I'm sure the people who were affected are the minority of the population that were involved. And even these people are lukewarm about the idea about fighting for global warming, because we humans demand too much of instantaneous results, which these concerts are not about. To know that we are not going to have an instantaneous results was as good as the event digging its own grave. Truth to be told, it is easy to say that the concerts failed, it really is. I'd still like to think that they did, I really do. But it's getting hard to persuade myself with all the figures and all the statistics flowing in through the media. It's like being slapped right in the face by global warming all over again, and it is back after twenty-four hours of maddening partying.

Winning a lottery changes the life of the winner. Let's say you win six million dollars overnight, and you are rich all of a sudden. According to statistics however, an average winner is going to revert back to the life he led three months after the winning of the lottery. That is to say, if you were a rich stuck up bastard when you won the lottery, you are going to be a rich stuck up bastard three months after you win it. If you were a poor trailer-trash when you won the lottery, you are going to be a poor trailer-trash three months after you win it. The truth is, humans don't exactly have a very long attention span in anything, and unless we have concerts in the scale of Live Earth every month, this passion is going to die down somewhere between now and a date three months later. It is inevitable that people are going to remember anything more than the music in three months' time, just like the way people hardly recalls the events that occurred during Live 8 two years ago. If you were moved by the messages received during the concerts and you are recycling every single plastic bottle and bags at home, how long are you going to continue with this habit of yours? How many of us are really going to ride a bicycle instead of driving a car to the mall five kilometers away? The truth is, even if X amount of people are doing it now, it is going to be about half of X in three months' time. That's human nature, and everything is temporal within us.

Personally, I have become the Eco-Police at home, checking up on television sets on standby mode as well as cellphone chargers. Any form of charger draws electricity from your outlet even if you are not using it, which is why I have unplugged all my chargers when I am not using them. Putting your television and other electrical appliances on standby also draws large amount of energy, which is why I go around the house every once in a while to check up on them. I have resorted to having the fan turned on every night instead of the air-conditioning, because it is probably the highest energy consuming electrical appliance right after the fridge and the television. I am doing my part to be green, and I am even wearing green as I am typing this entry. But how long am I going to last in this battle? What if I am alone in this, or in the minority? You can say that a little bit goes a long way, but I'd rather know that people around the world are doing the same, than to know that I am the only soldier left standing amidst the mess created by our own hands.

It was strange and ironic in a way, that the artistes who attended the Live Earth concerts are now being labeled as being non-Eco-friendly, while the ones who rejected the offer like Arctic Monkeys are being labeled as the moral police. I'm not saying that it was wrong for Arctic Monkeys to reject the chance to fight for the planet crisis, but it's just strange how these artistes are being labeled as this or that, because they attended a concert with much hope and faith. Like I said before, perhaps they did it for exposure, for publicity, for fame. But whatever the reason was, they did what they had to do on stage, and the messages were brought across loud and clear. But at the end of the day, how much of those were registered? How many people were truly moved? I want my blue skies and green grass, and I want my air to smell like the salty wind at a beach still, how far are we willing to go as humans to uphold that dream as a whole?

It is as if Earth was on its way of being rescue for twenty-four hours, then sent back to hell the moment the concerts ended. Like a sucker punch, it hurts more than a punch in the stomach that has been expected. I have never been more environmentally conscious in my life until now, but I wonder how long I am going to last as well. Truth to be told, I am also guilty of desiring a fast result - but that is not going to happen any time soon. We are still going to drive cars instead of taking public transports, we are still going to ask for plastic bags at malls, and we are still going to turn on our air-conditioning because it is just so damn hot in Singapore. It doesn't matter to people in Singapore that we are the 7th country in the whole world when it comes to carbon dioxide emission. It doesn't matter to us that we are the 7th in ranking when it comes to murdering our good Earth, because we won't be around to see the oceans rise and the ice-caps melt. We will be long dead by then, and we cannot care any less about it now. Humans are ugly, that much I've learned.

So for what it is worth, I will go on with my efforts to save this planet that I have. At least when Singapore is no more, my grand children or great grand children may chance upon this entry and say that their grand father or great grand father made an effort to save the world, unlike those ugly humans out there still pouring poisonous fume into the air. At least I can hold my chin up high and my chest up, proclaiming to the world that I tried my very best in this issue, unlike everybody else. At least we have that, at least I have that. But is that enough to save ourselves, is the power of one really that significant?

John Mayer has a point. Hear the man out.