Monthly Archive for April, 2009

I am sure we are all aware of the fact that the Earth is regenerating resources at a rate which is not fast enough to sustain the current human lifestyle. We are literally killing ourselves at this very moment. I know that many of us are trying their very best to save mother Earth — recycling, saving energy, using environmental friendly products, etc. However, some of us have actually gone overboard, coming out with rather ridiculous way of saving mother Earth. At least it’s ridiculous from how I see it.

Here’s the story. I was driving to work one day listening to hitz.fm and it was days before Earth Hour. Hence, a lot of topics were somewhat related to saving the Earth and environment. The DJs were talking about a lady who refuses to travel by plane, simply coz she didn’t want to contribute to the amount of carbon that has been emitted into Earth. She was suppose to fly to Australia from England to attend her friend’s wedding. Now, because she refuses to travel by plane, she started her journey approximately 3 months before the day of her friend’s wedding. Yes, 3 months. She traveled, generally by sea and land — cars, horses, ship I suppose (I don’t quite remember) and the list pretty much goes on. Apparently, this was supposed to save on carbon emission, hence saving on global warming.

Now, let us use the carbon footprint calculator. Total amount of carbon emission contributed by one person, flying from England to Australia and back would amount up to approximately 3 tonnes. Spending 3 months on the road, staying in places and using up a certain amount of electricity, MAY just caused the same amount of CO2 being emitted into Earth. Who knows, it could have been more. I may be wrong, but I just felt that this method is ridiculous simply because you are throwing away 3 months trying to save Earth, when you could have been causing more damage! In fact, one can use 3 months to do wonders, including things that could save Earth. 3 tonnes of CO2 is a lot. I’m not denying that fact. But couldn’t there be a more efficient way of saving Earth rather than spending 3 months of our time traveling by feet?

Yes, our lifestyle has changed. It is an evolution in the humankind. There is no way we can go back to living in the ancient world where we hunt for our own food and cook them under a fire we built by rubbing two stones together. Yes, the evolution has caused us humans to consume resources from the Earth at a rate that is way too fast for the Earth to regenerate. But spending 3 months trying to get to another place does not seem to be efficient in terms of energy consumed either. I think it’s just someone trying to clear his or her conscious by traveling by land or sea. Coz it doesn’t make any much sense at all.

Let’s look from the perspective of what I’ll do on Monday. I’ll be flying from Penang to HongKong for business and me alone would have caused approximately 0.6 tonnes of CO2 to be emitted into Earth. If traveling by land and sea will really save Earth, would that mean that I have to start my journey a month earlier and waste a month of time, not being able to do work efficiently? I just don’t see the point — at all. In addition to all of that, has anyone actually thought of how much money would be needed to travel that way? Is it really cheaper? Think about the amount of time needed. Really, is it any cheaper? Not everyone has that luxury of spending that sort of money to save Earth. It’s the same as those who can afford fuel efficient cars and start to criticize ppl who aren’t using fuel efficient cars. Not everyone is able to afford that.

Why not we start out the thought of saving Earth by thinking about how we can save the amount of household or work electricity that we may have wasted daily. Hmm? Or why not we start by effectively doing recycling activities, starting from home. Hmm? Wouldn’t that seemed a little wiser?

I’m all against global warming. I know global warming is killing us. But even though we are trying to save Earth, I still believe we should do it wisely and efficiently. I don’t believe that going back to living like a caveman would help — seriously.

Then again, this are just my thoughts. You are free to disagree.