Crikey

Today I finally watched the funeral of an Aussie icon. Earlier this month, on September 4th, the man famously known as "The Crocodile Hunter", Steve Irwin, was attacked by a stingray. He may have been so many things in the media to people, but to Australians he was a colourful character who loved pursuing a good cause. Before he died I guess I knew that he was quite popular over in the U.S. but I had no idea about the impact that he had globally until that day. Indeed, he was famous.

It's unfortunate that he was judged in a lot of negative ways, because above everything that he was labelled, he was a human being. He made mistakes like the rest of us did, only his were magnified by the media. However, in celebrating his life, most of the world has recognised and commemorated the "Wildlife Warrior" who was passionate about animals and wanted to save the world. And that's how he wanted to be remembered: for passion and enthusiasm.

I know that Steve Irwin had made significant contributions from highlighting environmental issues and to raising awareness of Australian Quarantine matters (don't muck with it!), which I believe has been highly commendable. May his legacy live on.

What also encouraged me to finally get around to writing this blog was that over the weekend I had seen "An Inconvenient Truth" at the movies over the weekend. But long before I had even heard of Steve Irwin, I guess you could say I was pretty interested in environmental issues from wanting to fix the holes in the ozone layer to writing a letter in a bid to make a difference towards the anti-whaling movement. These sorts of causes were encouraged right from my primary school education. Over time I know that I have taken an unconscious step back from really wanting to save the world on a global scale to trying to make more of a difference "close to home". In recent times, I have used my alternate blog - a more personal blog - to raise awareness of various issues (health, safety and the environment) from identifying a Stroke to highlighting the issue of our diminishing water supply (our most precious natural resource). I've been meaning to do my first blog on other environmental issues and I think that's where this blog will be helpful, as I'm hoping that I will be able to help get the message across around the world. More coming soon...