An Inconvenient Truth

Al gore’s “Inconvenient Truth” brings out the truth about global warming to the masses. It showed convincingly that the very place all humans being called home are in imminent danger of being destroyed. The things we do everyday have a profound impact on earth, and most of us are, unfortunately, blissfully ignorant about it. Every little things we do everyday have an impact on the earth, the very fact that the human population is huge, would act to compound the effect.

Global warming brings with it the issue of morality. The release of carbon that result in the effect of global wide warming that we experience today is from countries that have been industrialized decades ago, and hence we able to enjoy the fruits that come with modernization, namely material wealth. With wealth, often result in excess. People in developed nation can afford to consume more than their counterpart in third world country. While people are dying every day from malnourishment in country such as Haiti, restaurant in Singapore throw any food that is left over. Mind you, the food thrown away is estimated to be about 30% [2]. Imagine, if this food can somehow be evenly distributed, not only can we reduce carbon emission, lives can also be saved. The inequality unfortunately do not end with just food, people in developed nation often have more material possession than they really need (e.g. cloth and electronic gadgets). Productions of these good require energy and hence result in carbon emission.

With global warming, it is the moral responsibility of everyone especially those in the developed nation to consume less. The era of spending on excess amount of goods and services need to come to an end as it is the responsibility of everyone living in planet earth to make sure that the next generations have a place to call home. Environmental and special group should work towards the goal of fostering sense of responsibility in the public. As mentioned early, human consumption of goods and services have a compounding effect due to the sheer number of human population, on the other hand if everyone was to work together in combating global warming, the effect would be significant as well.

For a better tomorrow for all, we should try our best to consume less.



1. From Defra report: "Environmental Impacts of Food Production and Consumption", December 2006, page 93 http://www.defra.gov.uk/science/project_data/DocumentLibrary/EV02007/EV02007_4601_FRP.pdf
2. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1460183,00.html