meow meow
by: nuttz

The world has slowly come to realise that the need to conserve the environment in order to ensure the survival of mankind and Earth as a whole is of paramount. Environmental awareness and education is now a very important issue as leaders of the world are stepping up efforts to make their country more environmentally friendly for many reasons. Based on my attempt to live a 'green' lifestyle over the past few weeks, I would say it is an easy lifestyle to maintain but one would need to be ignorant [why ignorant?], have strong willpower and discipline, and the ability to adapt to be able to successfully lead an environmentally friendly lifestyle.

The seven changes I promised to fulfil for the past few weeks are: i) to use my laptop on “energy saving” mode, ii) to use “darkoogle” as my usual search engine, iii) to open the curtains to let light in, iv) to shop in environmentally friendly shops, v) to buy cards made from recycled paper, vi) to bring my own shopping bags and vii) to switch off the air-conditioner when there is no one in the room. When using my laptop on “energy saving” mode, using darkoogle as my search engine, opening the curtains during the day instead of switching on the lights and to switch of the air-conditioner when no one needs it, I lowered my everyday energy consumption thus releasing less carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, as human beings release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere in almost everything we do. This is because it is said that the brighter an item is, the more energy it uses thus emitting more carbon. By shopping in environmentally friendly shops, I am supporting the effort of the owners with hope that these shops would continue to raise awareness among people towards the effects of their actions towards the environment. I would also be able to reduce the amount of waste I produce everyday by bringing my own shopping bags when I go shopping. This is because I usually throw the plastic bags away as soon as I get home and that would generate more garbage and increase the amount of methane and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere created by decomposing of garbage. Buying cards made from recycled paper too means that there would be less trees being chopped to create cards. Trees is a very important element in conserving the balance of gasses in the atmosphere and are habitats to many animals, other than helping to lower the average temperature of the earth.

Ignorance is bliss and I agree with it in this matter. It is an important factor to successfully apply environmentally friendly changes in one’s life. Most Malaysians have low environmental awareness. They think that by using two sides of the paper and by selling old newspaper to the old newspaper man, it is environmentally friendly. Part of that is recycling but it is just a small part. It is harder to live an environmentally friendly life here than if I were to be living in the West. This is because the government just started its environment conservation projects less than 10 years ago and the people need to be more exposed to the issues of the environment. If you were to be walking from, for example, Sunway College to the Subang KTM station, I would be disturbed by some people along the way, may it be people in the area and bus, taxi or car drivers. They would call out, asking for your name, whistling at you or even following you. Here is where ignorance plays its part, if you show any sign of acknowledgement, they would continue to disturb you. Malaysians are also very particular to people who are different from themselves. If you were to be doing something which is out of the norm, like putting all your groceries into a bag instead of taking them in plastic bags, they would be gawking at you. The gawking induces annoyance because I don’t see why they should be staring at me for doing so and embarrassment because other people who have no clue would also be staring at you. Ignorance is also an important step to overcome awkwardness. There is a first time in everything we do and the awkwardness will be there for the first few times. If we pretend that we do that new action all the time, we will get used to the action faster.

To apply changes to one’s lifestyle, a person have a strong willpower. Without willingly want to change and wanting to change with all your heart, nothing will change. I know it is always hard to immediately stop a habit or to change one’s lifestyle. To grow out of a habit and to change the way we always do things also needs time. Maintaining an environmentally friendly lifestyle is easy for me because I have been aware of the effects of my actions to the environment for some time. This is because I have a friend who raised my awareness towards the environment and also because my parents had indirectly taught me to be environmentally friendly. I had been scolded by them for leaving lights and fans on when I’m not using them and forced to use public transportation when they are lazy to drive. I will admit that if I were ignorant about the environment before I made this promise, fulfilling them would be harder. Having a strong will power will also continue to motivate you to apply the changes in your daily life even if that choice is inconvenient for yourself like bringing your own shopping bag when you go grocery shopping instead of using plastic bags provided by the store. I don’t fancy bring a bag along when I go buy my groceries because at Carrefour, they ask you to leave your bag at the customer service counter before you enter as a method to curb stealing. Although that, bringing a bag is convenient as I need not worry that someone would just snatch my groceries while I wait for the bus and my fingers wont hurt because the weight of your groceries in the plastic bag. I had note on the table to remind myself for the first two weeks to bring a bag along.

The ability to adapt to a situation is the best solution to overcoming the obstacles one will face when leading an environmentally friendly lifestyle. As I said earlier, the level of environmental awareness in Malaysia is low and because of that, it is harder for one to be more environmentally friendly but it is not impossible. As I live in a hostel and I have a roommate and 5 other housemates, it is quite impossible to save energy in the unit because someone will switch on the lights in the deserted common area after I switched it off. I also tried to switch of the air-conditioner when I go out after my roommate but it resulted to her requesting me to not switch it off when she leaves her laptop on to download movies so that it doesn’t overheat. I put the air-conditioner on a higher temperature instead with hope that it will lower down the energy consumption. The fact that I couldn’t find any cards and postcards made of recycled paper and any shop other than The Body Shop which pledged to be environmentally friendly is disappointing too. I sent emails instead and refuse to have my purchases placed in plastics instead. I would also separate all recyclables before placing them in the dustbin. Although there are no recycle bins in the hostel compound, it would be easier for the garbage collectors who separate the recyclables. To adapt to the lousy public transportation, I often walk to Sunway Pyramid, where there are more buses available instead of waiting at for the mini bus. I also allocate more time to get to my destination in case of traffic jams and unavailability of busses. The weather in Malaysia also discourages me from walking long distances because I would feel as it my skin is burning. It is also quite dangerous to walk at night or early mornings because the risk of getting mugged or having your bag snatched is high, so I don’t go out at night.

The period for me to try to fulfil my seven promises may be over but I do plan to continue practicing them because I want to play my part to ensure that the earth continue to be a suitable place for mankind to live in. I am also thinking of more ways to be more environmentally friendly and trying to get my friends to be more environmentally friendly. I also hope that the leaders of the world would be able to co-operate to find a way to reduce the effects of global warming for a better future.