Thursday, September 24, 2009

D-Day

Long time ago my friends and I made a T-shirt to another friend with big letters 'D-Day' on it. We thought it meant 'The Day' (you know, suitable for birthday..). Of course one older fellow educated us that it came from the Second World War, representing the day of the Normandy landings, so in a way meaning 'Doom Day'. Quite naturally, I believe the T-shirt was not used much.
Today would be day to wear such a shirt. Why? Well, because today is the Earth Overshoot Day, and when you think about it, it is quite horrifying. Doom, really.. Earth Overshoot Day is the day that the people of the world have used up their resources for this year. That is the resources earth can sustainably produce. So what are we living on / consuming for the rest of the year (over 3 months, so more than 25% of the year?!?)? Credit. Resources that are borrowed from future generations.
I do not like it. I know it's easy to go shopping and just use Visa, as if none of your own money was being used - but the bill always arrives, and has to be paid. When does the bill arrive for using earth's resources on credit?
I think this is important, for the sake of everyone on this planet. I feel frustrated that in this hub of consumerism and capitalism where money talks and bs, or simply waste, walks over the borders to poorer countries, this kind of issue gets no space in the media. In Finland hs.fi did an article, but here the ST just goes on abut F1.
Finland's footprint is 27,5 and Singapore's is 18. How can that be? This tiny country has oil refineries, builds skyscrapers from concrete all day long and imports nearly everything sold in the stores - not to mention the energy used for air conditioning (I have not seen any solarpanels yet..) and the low recycling rate and wasteful ways with packaging - how can the footprint be smaller that Finland's?
I'm all questions, no answers today..
BTW, I tried to find a personal footprint calculator that I could use in my current situation (living in S'pore or just Asia in general). Not much luck, as I ran into 'What part of Australia do you live in?' question trying out the Global Footprint Network's calculator, and 'What type of energy do you use to heat up your house?' question trying out the WWF UK's footprint calculator..
Certainly no heating needed here, just cooling. But not on credit.. will turn it off now.

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