It's getting hot in here...

Monday, July 17, 2006

I was searching on my computer for a specific document and I came across an old essay I wrote in grade 9. It's funny looking back on your writing from 6-7 years ago. Thankfully I have progressed since then, but what I had to say wasn't that bad. Interestingly enough, my essay was about global warming. Nathan just posted about the fact that we went to go see The Inconvenient Truth at the Westdale Theatre. Depsite my cynical suspicisions of a political ploy, Al Gore had some great things to share. The movie was powerful and a definite must see.I learned so much from this movie and re-reading my little essay it would be tough to share it all. But I'll venture to leave a few comments.
Global warming is a big deal. It's not just something scientists, university students and environmentalists should talk about. Everyone needs to do their part to be informed on this global issue. Why? It's our fault! The way we live is creating a consistant temperature increase that will have devestating effects on this earth if we don't pause and choose to do something about it.
It was so interesting to me how I could write this essay for school and a mere 6 years later, forget about the words I so passionately shared with my peers. We tend to live in the moment don't we? It's so tough to break into our long term memory as a people. Things like 9-11, the tsunami, hurricane Katrina, the war in Iraq, they are remembered mostly because of their immediate devestating effects. Or have you forgot about these disasters already? It's easy to forget. However, events like these usually etch our memory and fill the pages of history books, while things that are brought about slowly with minimal short term damage are overlooked. For example, what about the crisis in Darfur where millions of people are dying? How many of us are informed or ready to be moved by this? Not enough. The time has come to stop living for today and start thinking about tomorrow.
An illustration that really put things into perspective for me was one about a frog. If a frog jumps into a boiling pot of water, it will jump out immediately. It recognizes that the water is too hot and that it is dangerous to remain in that situation. On the other hand, if a frog jumps into a lukewarm pot of water and the temperature goes up gradually, the frog will happily stay in the water unaware of the imminent danger.
We are like that frog. We're sitting in a boiling pot and we're lazily basking in our hot tub of relaxation while disaster awaits. But this disaster can be avoided. We as a concerned people can decide to take action and hop out of this pot.
I was challenged by this movie and my grade 9 science essay to re-evaluate the way I live and to be responsible for the way I live.
Go see the movie, hopefully it will change your actions too.

posted by Rachel Pede @ 10:26 PM   0 comments