Our own Alter Space: the world with no future WALL-E

"Switch off the lights, or else..."

Over and over again.

Words we kids never want to hear, and simple duties we always forget to finish. Maybe because it's our parents, and we seriously don't want to hear it from an imperative tongue. But what if it's a game?

I was about to leave my room and paused at the light switch, remembering how I advanced to level two in my Alter Space game because of successfully conserving energy. I'd once thought it's just another amusing game in Facebook, not quite realizing how it changed me. I switched off the light.

Alter Space is the first Filipino environmental awareness game on Facebook. It's designed by Cleanergy from AboitizPower, and through this online recreation, millions of Filipino kids can finally get "addicted" to saving the environment.

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Keep your carbon footprint at a low level and accomplish the tasks at hand. Suddenly all these boring chores became exciting quest logs for us to get to the next level. Switching off the lights, helping friends conserve energy and collecting solar power became part of our online pastime we'd never thought to be this educational and inspirational.

This is the first time I ever played a game in Facebook, realizing I could actually enjoy conserving energy back home. Alter Space would always remind me to turn off the TV and the component when nobody's using them anymore. But what I admire most is the game's promotion of the Filipino culture, highlighting the use of banig when sleeping and the turo-turo store with its Filipino cuisines.

Looking back, WALL-E's filthy world always reminds me how hopeless ours can be. The Smokey Mountain waste land I saw on TV always spoils my optimism that this world can still survive human negligence and cruelty. But then I realize it's not what I see that can save the environment--it's what I think.

Out here in the real world, it's not a game anymore. Playing Alter Space made me realize that we can always perfect our own virtual planets, but we can perfect this planet we live in only once. The change and the decision will always start in me, not in anybody. If I can't convince myself of the hopeful thought of the world's survival, how can I ever convince anybody?

"Be the change you want to see in this world." As part of the hopeful youth, I'll start the campaign in me to change people from all walks of life, just like how Alter Space has changed me.