In the movie ‘Four’, the first story ‘A Noob’s Human Holocaust’ tells of a gang of guys discussing about global warming, about how the passion for reversing it has cooled down worldwide, much to their dismay. (This is arguably the most educational of the four stories in this unconventional ‘horror’ anthology.) One spoke of how global warming is worsened by the vicious cycle of the increasing heat urging people to turn on more air-conditioners, which uses more fossil fuels, that fuel even higher temperatures. He also remarked of the stupidity of someone’s idea that the solution to global warming is to turn on air-conditioners and to open windows to cool the planet! Funny yet tragically true, how ignorance can be to this extent.
They next chat about a concept called Earth Chemo, of how humans wrecking the planet are like cancer cells on the body of the planet, of how the disease of global warming can be cured by a process similar to how chemotherapy is used to kill bad (and good) cells. In short, a human holocaust. This chemo process is then horrifyingly spread through a phone virus, that rings cell phones and those on their contact lists, to sound a special frequency, that kills the listeners. This might seem fantastical, but yet somewhat credible at the same time? Will this movie inspire some to create such a virus? Will this story remind us to wake up to the problem of global warming, to care for the planet before it is too late, lest some environmentalist fanatic kills us all? You decide! Still, we are already killing ourselves slowly… We are the anti-environment fanatics!
The truth is, the Earth will definitely outlive global warming; it is us who might not. The Earth will simply evolve. At most, it would become a super hothouse planet like Venus? Sentient beings who can’t keep up simply die out. Save the Earth from global warming… for who? For us actually (and affected flora and fauna). If humankind is wiped out through the phone virus, there would be no purpose of doing so in the first place then. The battle against global warming makes sense only if we battle against it now, while alive, without taking one another’s life. How about spreading this good virus instead, by reminding one another to wake up before global warming claims our lives?
Gratitude to nature was the Buddha’s first silent lesson after he awakened to reality, when he gazed at the Bodhi tree for an entire week, with deep appreciation of it for sheltering him from the elements (including heat!) in his quest for enlightenment. Let’s also awaken to appreciation of the great Earth now!
