Reflections

After a surprise barbecue party at Sentosa's Coasta Sands for Charlene, I came home to plonk myself onto the sofa. I managed to catch what I wanted to watch on television - a Channel U documentary production featuring Darren Lim on a trip to China, to plant trees to stop desertification. Seriously, very scary. If you see how the climate change has affected that part of the world, I think you might contemplate living without electricity. A river which was depended on by desert nomads for thousands of years actually dried up in about 8 years just recently. Are we - the city dwellers - partially responsible for it by living in luxury in well air-conditioned malls but leaving those nomads caged in their little huts in temperatures of 50 to 60 degree Celsius just because it is too hot to go outdoors? To be frank, I'm pretty amazed by an ex-CEO of a listed company leaving his position to become an environmentalist. He has an objective to plant 168 square metres of trees per year to stop desertification.

Now, I'm more inspired and motivated to do my part for Earth. As they say, "There is no second chance for Earth."

Did you just leave the lights or fans on when nobody is in the living room?

While we might not be able to what they are doing, but we could start taking baby steps. Shut down your laptop or computer if you are not going to use it in hours. Imagine if 100 people do that, then a lot of fossil fuels are saved, burning coal in power stations is reduced, less carbon dioxide is released, there are less greenhouse gases to trap heat on Earth, and rivers won't dry up as fast. That means more water to last human beings for a longer time. Can you imagine not showering for days? Then perhaps you could do your part by shutting down if you are leaving home, now.