Duties and Responsibilites

Procrastination makes you do things you wouldn't normally do.

Like blogging, instead of starting your 3,000 word essay due in less than 48 hours.

So this essay I'm doing on the enabling/constraining factors of globalisaton on climate change policies in Australia, made me think about my own views on the environment. All the readings I have done so far about the different attitudes towards climate change, what could happen, what WILL happen....it just started to remind me of the last time I went back to the Philippines, when the "spirit of environmentalism" suddenly stirred and awoke inside of me.

I've always regarded the environment as important, anyway. When I was younger, I wrote this literary article about taking care of our surroundings which was a bit random, having a little girl telling people how to do things; I made sure I always chuck my rubbish in the bin, and not out of the car window; I shook my head in disgust whenever I saw vehicles emitting great, big billows of smoke. But of course, I never really understood it.

Some people have called me a "tree-hugger" because of my new-found stance on the environment, but I see it more of a duty. How did it become so caught up in politics anyway? That somehow keeping the jobs of our citizens is more important than what will happen to them when everything falls apart?

The environment is one of the best ways through which God can communicate with us. Think of Moses and the Burning Tree, the Mustard Seed, The Red Sea and The Garden of Eden; What astronaut wouldn't look at the vast space he explores and think some divine hand did it?; Who haven't looked at a sunrise/sunset and felt blessed to be alive?

Another significant thing is the kind of legacy I leave to my children. Will they still have the opportunity to swim in a sparkling mountain river; or sit under a tree and eat its fruits? I get scared just thinking that they might never be able to see how blue the sky really is, or travel to little paradise islands because it had long been engulfed by the sea.

This is not some extreme belief.

As a human whose life is indebted to my Creator, and whose actions are responsible to the lives He will soon create...

this is my duty.