In a nutshell, climate change may loom as monstrous as it can be, but sadly, when each country narrows its focus on itself in the global radarscreen, its tiny and bright blip becomes a blind spot. Climate change is lost out of sight.

The pending lost of a forest to the development of the Integrated Resort (IR) at Sentosa -- coming freshly on the heel of signing the Kyoto Protocol -- will potentially become a classic case-study for such a blind spot. And it is not for want of nature or environmental education.

As a good friend and teacher once lamented, "education alone will not save us." How very true. He is not alone in feeling that.

What does it takes to save a forest from being felled? Just take a good look at the land slated for the IR development. [See Map]

Sitting tightly around the perimeter to the east is a sprawling golf course, and to the south, a 6-hectare coastal forest -- a natural green lung and carbon sink. Which would be the educated choice for sacrificing when land is needed -- the golf course or the forest?

As decisions would have it, the forest will soon be felled, signaling the start of a 3-year building phase for the IR project. [sigh...]

When will good sense prevail? On the brink of doomsday?

The Tao [truth] of environmental consciousness (and with it, positive action) lies quite simply with TAO -- meaning 'There Are Options'.

Indeed there are. There are as many options as our creative juice can provide. And it is ever flowing; "a source of ten thousand things," Lao Tsu would have exalted as often as he did. That is the beauty of the human mind when we wills it.

The beauty is that businesses need not be the beast. Good practices can prevail. Unfortunately, to many, a second or third option is unthinkable. They cost more and earn less. The profit margin becomes the finishing line. Need we eat money and die?

The coastal forest is a living forest. LIVING -- it cannot be emphasized more. Where education fails, it is because we cannot handle the issue of ethics. It is the stuff we cannot come to terms with; for example, putting animal welfare on par with [human] social welfare within the moral (and legal) framework of our society.

Ethics requires living in harmony and according respect and reverence to all living entities, including the realm where they move and have their being. Strangely, we [human] have not realized that that is our realm too. What more is there to speak of our 'responsibility' towards them, believing as we do, as 'higher beings'?

Spare Sentosa's forest. It is not that difficult. We still can earn money at the IR. The world needs a renaissance of the human spirit. Why not shine forth in this respect, Singapore?