While relaxing and watching a slew of movies and television shows this weekend I came to a sudden realization: going green has become the latest fad.
The night started off with one of my favorite flicks, WALL-E. The movie tells the story of a simple robot who partakes in a spectacular journey and ultimately saves humanity from laziness, obesity, and a general sense of apathy toward caring about the environment.
Wall-E is the man. Errr, robot
On an interesting side note, I love how this movie portrays robots as friends to humanity rather than the typical American view that they're going to kill us all.
I am from Californ-EE-YAH and I am going to KILL YOU
After WALL-E, I flipped over to HBO and caught The Day The Earth Stood Still for the first time. Starring Keanu Reeves in his perfect clueless and emotionless role, the plot revolves around an alien sent to save Earth. Unfortunately, the alien concludes that the only way to save the Earth and its precious life is to destroy every human being. A sad end for us, but considering we're causing a mass extinction faster than any the Earth has seen before it's hard to argue with his logic.
"I really have no idea what is going on right now"
Finally, I tuned to Animal Planet for a Jeff Corwin special. Little did I know the show, titled 100 Heartbeats, centered on all the animals facing endangerment or extinction. With a mixture of optimism and despair, Corwin describes how these animals arrived in the danger zone and what is being done to ensure their survival.
This dude is just crazy
Throughout all of this, the brutal reality of what we as humans are doing to the planet started to sink in. Tragic, barbaric, and barely describe the state we've brought the planet to with overpopulation, uncontrolled pollution, and global warming. Scarier still is the fact that some people refuse to recognize the scientific evidence behind all of these problems, only worsening the situation.
Back to my original point, is the green movement in? My answer is I hope so. It's so easy to scoff and say that changing your lifestyle won't fix anything, but it's this kind of thinking that will ensure these problems persist and grow worse rather than get better. Changing your entire way of life overnight is nearly impossible, so maybe instead try to focus on one thing at a time. Eat vegetarian or vegan a few times a week or for a few meals a day. Set your thermostat to one or two degrees lower and put on a sweater. Take the bus or, better yet, walk somewhere you're going once a week. It's tough to say if one person can make a difference, but we'll never know until we try.
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