Green turbo-boost.

Picture an empty shopping mall in Perth, Western Australia. There is nothing particularly inspiring about the place. It is not the majestic Himalayas or rugged Dartmoor.

In fact, for an environmentalist, it could be said to represent much of what is insidious in Western civilization. It contains the public contact points for transnational corporations involved in third world debt. The last word in urban centralization, it destroys communities and encourages people to use their cars too much.

However it was here, one Sunday, that I realized my mission in life--to do the best I could to limit these problems of debt, inequality and environmental destruction.

A year before I had completed a degree in environmental science which had given me a knowledge of the problems but not the impetus to do anything about them. I was always the most vocal on the vices of the global economic and political systems. The mass media and global communications have enabled my generation to see far beyond our own doorstep to the problems of extinction in Africa or the arms trade in Indonesia. We can see the connections between our actions at home and the suffering in Cambodia or the threat of global warming.

The images we see create anger and passion. But the distance between us and them breed helplessness, frustration and apathy--`it's all out of my control', `there's **** all I can do about it' are responses I often hear. As more and more of the world is beamed into our living rooms, we feel more and more overwhelmed and less and less responsible.

Luckily, I'm not afraid to take risks or try new things. In Perth, I happened to bump into a group called the Environment Youth Alliance (EYA). I became involved as a volunteer for a couple of months, working in schools and helping to organize demonstrations. Suddenly I was doing something--not much, but something. I wasn't insignificant after all and what I said mattered.

After two months of inspiring work I was waiting in the shopping mall to go to a meeting when all the frustration and passion, together with the energy you get from achieving something, came together. It was a turbo-boost (or a tail wind on a bicycle--less polluting!) for my journey in life, my thoughts and actions.

This has given reason to everything I have done since then. I slowly began to try altering my life to fit my ideal of an ecological human being--to make my environmental footprint as light as possible. I began with simple tasks like recycling and cycling and I have now graduated to full-time work with Friends of the Earth and an organic allotment where we are trying, with some success, to grow all our own food. I think it is important to concentrate on small things to avoid losing my head in the clouds. And as I become more involved and do more research, the list of changes grows and grows.

As I have looked deeper into the issues, I have come to the conclusion that the thing that makes a political ideology, a religion or even a community project work is human integrity. Human failings, not governments, are the problem. So my emphasis is now more on changing people than on protecting the environment. If we can achieve the first, the second will follow.

When you begin to criticize others you inevitably end up criticizing--and therefore having to change--yourself. You cannot attack others for destroying the environment when you yourself are a culprit. You have to dedicate your whole life to changing yourself in order to help others.

I'm working on it! See you in several thousand years!