Why is Jakarta so often flooded? Why is the air so polluted? Why is the weather going crazy? Why is it getting hotter and hotter?

The answers to these questions can be found at the Green Festival held in Bung Karno Sports Complex's east parking lot in Senayan, Central Jakarta, this weekend.

The festival has opened visitors' eyes on their contribution to global warming by showing them how their daily activities affect the earth.

Visitors are first greeted by a model red earth made of steel showing how hot the planet can get. A virtual ice floor, where the ice cracks when someone steps on it, brings a sense of how fragile the ice in the North Pole is. The experience was heightened by screens showing flooding, the melting glaciers and storms.

Cartoonists Benny and Mice put on a playful show about Jakartans' wasteful habits, with Mice watching three television sets, with the radio, fan and air conditioner on, and Benny talking about buying new cars that will only add to the pollution and long traffic jams.

"The public can easily understand messages through cartoons. That's why we use them extensively," chief organizer Nugroho Yudho of Kompas daily said Saturday.

Bad habits related to global warming were highlighted in cartoons and pictures, depicting leaving the AC and TV set on when not in use and letting the water run when brushing teeth.

The parking lot was designed to resemble a house with a garden, garage, bathroom, living room and a bedroom, completely furnished. Information on wasteful daily activities are pasted everywhere.

"I was taken aback by what I found out and now I feel guilty," said Helen Setiawan, a 30-year-old working mother of two, after going through the festival. The information given related directly to my family's daily life."

She said she would start changing little things, like using both sides of paper and saving plastic bags.

"We just waste plastic bags, maybe because we get them for free. So when we use them, we don't think about them," Helen added.

She said the event also helped her educate her children better about the environment.

"They began to understand the impacts of their electricity use. I used to tell them to save power, but they didn't get it. Once they saw the cause-and-effects here, they understood. They were so surprised by what they saw," she said.

The free-of-charge event -- a collaboration of Kompas, MetroTV, Female Radio, consumer goods manufacturer PT Unilever Indonesia and state oil and gas firm PT Pertamina -- will finish on Sunday.

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