HIGHER STATE OF CONSCIOUSNESS

[This is in response for the Blog Action Day; October 15, 2007, bloggers
around the web will unite to put a single important issue on everyone’s
mind - the environment. Every blogger will post about the environment
in their own way and relating to their own topic. Our aim is to get
everyone talking towards a better future. Bloggers of the World unite!]

    I’ll be veering away from the political factor or any other factor
of the environment issue and just concentrate on one and the most
important one—us. Not the political us or the greedy us for that matter
but the ass that is us, to be exact, the psyche of us that is ass. I’ll
be assuming that you’re familiar or very familiar with the
award-winning documentary, An Inconvenient Truth by the best president
America never had—Al Gore. If not well, there you go being an ass of
us. There’s also The 11^th Hour documentary which I haven’t
seen yet, (Philippines release date is on Oct 10 but hey, we have
Quiapo and Greenhills here.) now that makes the two of us—ass. When I
say us doesn’t mean that I’m addressing it to the extremes meaning all
of us rather it just simply means, most of us or the majority of us
that is ass. But for now I’ll stop introducing asses and talk about us
err the psyche of us. Rest assured I have no degree in psychology and
there will be no scientific basis for my analysis rather my opinion and
analysis only so there is no need to flame me.

    Al Gore’s documentary used the quote from Mark Twain that would
eventually be my guiding quote for the environment—“What gets us into
trouble is not what we don’t know, it’s what we know for sure but just
isn’t so.” Now what makes that quote a reality so disturbing especially
when you apply it to our psyche towards the environment? I’ll be going
like an elementary school teacher here and cite a very elementary and
very simple example. It is elementary knowledge that when you cut down
trees and leave the mountains and watersheds bald translates to floods
and water shortages. Still we let our mountains and forests be shaved
like there is no tomorrow. And then we complain of floods and water
shortages later. Stupid isn’t it? Well actually my answer is no, it’s
not stupid; it’s VERY, VERY STUPID!

    Take the case of Al Gore warning us that if we do not cut down or at
least reduce our carbon dependency, Gaea, as what we know of her now
will cease to be in the next 50 years or so. How did we heed that
warning? Some took it seriously while most of us did not. Now that
latter is what really scares me and what really harrows Mark Twain’s
reality. Most of us are counter-punchers. We only react when we
experience the ultimate result. In this case the demise of Gaea. We
cannot be counter-punchers in this case. We need not experience the
ultimate result for if we wait until then, it will all be irreversible.

    Warnings are there because quite literally there is danger that
lurks ahead. I’ll be a hypocrite if I do not admit that there are also
warning signs that I take lightly. For example the government warning
that smoking kills but I’m slowly realizing that I need not be
diagnosed with lung cancer to stop. I have to go cold turkey sooner or
later lest I see the ultimate result. In my case on nicotine and our
case on the environment, the quote “let’s cross the bridge when we get
there” absolutely does NOT apply. We must discontinue or reverse
altogether our psyche being described by me as Mark Twain’s reality.

    The environment is in trouble, we are in trouble and that is a fact
that we all know. There have been countless warnings even before Al
Gore’s. There are also many ways to reverse the clear and present
danger the environment is at now. What we have to do is compel
ourselves that we have the ultimate result now. All the signs are here,
the changing climate etc. etc. its all happening NOW. So what do we do?
Yes, us!