Wind In My Head: Styrofoam
Wind In My Head
Thursday, April 05, 2007
Styrofoam
Over the weekend, I was at my brother's for dinner and was inadvertently entertained by my nephew and niece. My nephew brings home ideas he learns in school, possibly in Art and builds or makes things. The craft of choice this week was making a scarecrow out of a broom. Cool. His five year old sister tries to copy him but is hampered a little bit by age. She decided to make a face out of a plate. Cool. She picks up a styrofoam plate and then asks for chopsticks. I told her I'd give her the chop sticks only if she wasn't going to use it to poke holes in the plate. One could see her visibly deflate as I poked holes in her grand plan. Petulantly, she wailed "WHY???". Her mother and I said at the same time that it releases bad things (i.e. CFCs) into the atmosphere and that wasn't good. She reluctantly went off to get a marker pen to draw eyes, at her mother's suggestion. I felt bad for denying her childhood creativity, but at the same time, she's the one that's going to live in this hot, sweaty, rain deprived, flood inundated world.Fast forward to yesterday.
I was given instructions to teach a class on self-esteem (Don't even go there...). Apparently, part of the "props" for the lesson was styrofoam boards that students were supposed to break. Immediately, I told the coordinator, I'm not doing so, the world is going to shit and I'm not going to be party to destroying the world in the name of pastoral care and guidance. The response I got was bizarre. So what if the styrofoam came free with the package? So what if the school did not have to pay for it? So what if I got students to stand round the broken bits of styrofoam and breathe hard?
Apparently, two-thirds of my country realises what's going on with the world but knowing and doing's really different. I'm guilty of owning a car, running air-conditioning and lining my bins with plastic bags. I do try though. I'm not sure how much difference that makes but where I can, I won't. Like kungfu styrofoam.
Technorati Tags: Singapore, climate change, CFC
Ondine tossed this thought in at 12:30
2 thoughts...
-
At 9:33 pm
Tuan said... yo yo! there's some special Time coverage on climate change. 51 you-can-do-it ways to deal with "global warming".
and take good care of yourself, and especially of that little one-to-be :)-
At 11:08 am
xdd_rulz said...
heyhey..i heard tt the GBR will be gone by 2050 due to all these global warmin crap.oh man..=(