Vote Earth

Suddenly there are so many eco warriors here in Singapore urging everyone they know to vote earth. I see Earth Hour posters everywhere in town. I have people on Facebook asking me to join some Vote Earth campaign.

Earth Hour, if you do not know by now is about switching off your lights for Earth for an hour on March 28 from 8:30-9:30PM. If you switch off, you vote for Earth, you don't, you vote for global warming. (sounds like blackmail to me) It is hoping to get a billion people to do the switch off, the billion votes will be presented to world leaders at the Global Climate Change Conference that will take place in Copenhagen. This meeting will determine official government policies to take action against global warming, which will replace the Kyoto Protocol.

But you know what, a lot of these people whom I know are getting into this thing because it is cool. Suddenly I am surrounded by greenies.I cannot help but feel cynical about the whole issue. I have been recycling paper, reusing them as much as I can, since I was in primary school. I would tear out unused pages in exercise books and use them as scrap paper. I used my own bag to the markets and I sort my garbage into metal, plastic and paper. I refuse plastic bags whenever I can. I switch off electric sockets when not in use. I have switched to energy saving bulbs in some of my rooms. (Although those bulbs are too orange for my liking and cost a lot a lot more than the average bulb.) I collect rain water for washing toilets and the walkway outside my flat. I reuse the water that I used for washing rice to water my plants. Whenever I rinse water bottles without using soap, I will try to save that amount of water too. As much as I have done, I am not some save-the-earth manic. I still turn the air conditioning on every night. I am using way too many Tupperware containers. I do try to cut down on the number of flights I take a year though.

SO PLEASE DO NOT COME UP TO ME AND TELL ME TO SWITCH OFF MY FREAKING LIGHTS FOR AN HOUR ON JUST ONE PARTICULAR DAY TO FUCKING MAKE YOURSELF FEEL LIKE SOME ECO FUCKING WARRIOR!

As much as I feel that it is all for a great cause, there are people making feel that I am consuming more than I should, with a holier than thou attitude. I am very sure that I have been more conscious about the environment than most of these clowns.

The cynic in me has got me thinking that a lot of these self righteous people are going to go back to their ungreen ways after that particular hour. Why, I suppose it is really a lot easier to spread the word about Vote Earth than try to make some changes to your lifestyle and be greener. In some ways, I hope that, when more people know about this campaign, they will be inspired and will start to make a difference after that. I do wish that to happen. Maybe I am feeling a little pissed about this is because of how I have been treated in the past when I used to tell people that I recycle. I get weird looks, telling me, as if that I am totally naive to think that I alone will make a difference. Looks that seem to imply that I was totally uncool or a total nerd to be doing what I was doing. Even my family tease me about it. Now the same people are telling me to recycle. Wah lau.