Saving the Earth by changing the Singaporean Mind

What comes to our minds when someone mentions saving the Earth? The eyes probably start to roll before anything comes to the mind at all. To many of us, this kind of lofty ideals belong somewhere else. We are such a tiny dot in the whole wide world. Does anything we do matter at all? So what if we have one of the highest carbon footprint per capita in the world, the total volume of toxicity we produce is a tear drop as compared to the much bigger industrialized countries in the world. If anything can save the Earth, it will be stopping those big countries first.

What we don't realise it is not what we do that hurts the environment most of the time. It is the way we think. A single thought perpetuates beyond our swampy shores. Thoughts manifest into habits and habits cement practices throughout the world in the businesses we started or acquired. An array of practices will cultivate a culture. A culture is very difficult to reverse and it takes a lot of effort as well as decades of commitment from the decision makers in the country and large business owners. Thus, a single thought is more powerful or deadly than we can imagine.

If you don't agree with that, try to recall how every event emcee pleaded the departing crowd to pick up thrash they left behind. Take a walk into any NDP venue after the event to see how the exploited free labour in the form of NS men were deployed to clear the grounds of the rubbish. This is a classical evident how a single thought can decide a solution or a problem.

To many of us, saving the Earth comes in the form of events. Such as the Earth Hour. And we saw hordes of people lining the streets of the CBD taking photographs or videos of the city flipping into darkness at the start of the Earth Hour. Perhaps these folks owned DSLR cameras that ran on solar energy from the Moonlight. After the hour, life resumed as normal. We saved Earth.

If you took part in an event (saving Earth is an event, remember?) such as this:

You were supposed to save the environment by running. If such a stupid theory works, our damaged environment will be fully restored if we could get 5 million people running on the same day. Try joining an event like that and see how many plastic bottles were used and discarded conveniently where no one was looking for a start. Take a look what kind of material they used for event banners, awards and what nots. The environment could be better off if everybody stayed at home and slept out that morning.

Spreading awareness by getting children to collect recycles is not a bad thing but holding it as a contest will simply leave it as it is - a contest - at the end of the day. Will these participants be recycling a lot thereafter?

If we are sincere in helping the environment, big environmental players such as National Geographic or National Environment Agency should sit down and think these over seriously. We have to debate whether organizing events are for the purpose of showing everyone their respective agencies exist and have been doing some work and think of far better ways to invest the budget spent on these events year in year out on changing the mind of the Singaporean.

For a start, start to think hard yourselves first. You cannot expect to change the minds of the others if you are not even sure what you are doing. If you want ideas, hire me. If you are too cheap to do that, spread the word of this website so that our current and future work can benefit the future generations.