Wednesday, June 1, 2011

THE MARK TWAIN REALITY

[from friendster October 14, 2007]


[This is in response for the Blog Action Day; October 15, 2007bloggers 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 11th 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!

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