This is my contribution to the book project called: "Building a Greener Future". Since some of my write-ups are posted in this blog, I decided to share this here as well:
by Beatrice Ann A. Dolores
The world is clearly experiencing the adverse effects of climate change as we know it. We have been witnessing intense typhoons, hurricanes, flooding, and even fires either caused or worsened by climate change and more than 97% of the climate scientists agree that this is caused by mankind. But are we going to condemn human race for these? Are we going to accept Richmond Valentine of the Kingsman: The Secret Service’s opinion that “mankind is the virus” and that “we're making our planet sick” as if we cannot turn the tide to use the amount of human resources we have for sustainable development? It’s easy to blame, but that won’t move us towards a better direction. Like a doctor curing a patient’s illness, we must examine the cause of what resulted this manmade climate change so that we can understand how to treat it. The cause can be summarized in two words but is unlikely very simple: “human nature”.
It is in our nature to prioritize ourselves before anything else just like how we cannot accommodate other people’s (especially stranger’s) personal problems when we have a lot of our own to deal with. Hundreds to thousands of years back, kingdoms and civilizations only care about their own kin. They were willing to kill other factions just to protect themselves, not considering that who they’re killing are humans just like them. Human greed bred colonization: lands of other people were conquered and resources were exploited for another country’s benefit. Nature is considered as merely an avenue where we can get everything we need. Ever since, the outlook was to destroy nature so that we can progress. A land full of abundant life down to its microorganisms is transformed for businesses, shelter solely for “our personal needs as mankind”. At a general overview, we did not regard those who aren’t our own kind as equals. We only cared for our own wellbeing – as an individual, as a race, and as a specie.
At this age of globalization, cities expand and the world is generally designed for humans, as if we are the only living beings in this planet. From the lush green landscapes we used to have, we built concrete civilizations where trees and animals barely exist. This design we grew up in (far from plants, not coexisting with animals) eventually led to inevitable disconnection with nature. Dirt is disgusting; seeing a tiny insect irrationally freaks us out. Our minds don’t even process whether that certain insect just needs to go to a certain place for its own survival. Our immediate reaction is to swat it to death, just like what basic instincts tell any living being when faced with an unfamiliar and apparent threat to one’s life. When we go to the woods, we cannot even tell what is safe to eat or what has medicinal value unless we have a strong background in that field of science. It’s sad that the price of being civilized is to be too disconnected from the chain of life which sustains us, to the point that even our instincts cannot recognize what’s safe and what’s a threat.
Wildlife cannot coexist with us and yet we are diminishing the spaces they live in. Animals cannot safely be in the same road as us due to hazardous reasons. We don’t even want them in our buildings as we are worried about the dirt and chaos they’ll bring. The idea of animals within our immediate surroundings and coexisting with them seems unnatural to us. We regard them as the lesser beings: they belong to the zoo, in aquariums, as pets – caged and without freedom. Even in our laws, killing a person has more stringent punishments than killing trees and animals. Those which were locked up for circus and zoos their entire life for the benefit of mankind’s entertainment have all the right to desire freedom but when they escape, they’re a threat to society and are required to be hunted down (I would like to remind you of the circus elephant named Tyke from Hawaii, who was shot 86 times while her eyes show great disbelief from the turn of events). We do not regard other living beings (including the trees) as our cohabitants when we all live and die just like them.
What devastates our planet is cheaper and was predominantly selected to be in the grid. Fossil fuel is cheaper because we don’t consider its destructive effects on its pricing. It has been the staple source of electricity since the Industrial Revolution that engines (from family vehicles to cargo ships and airplanes) are designed to accommodate it, and resistance from what’s familiar slows down the shift to renewable energy. The same goes with single-use packaging and plastics. Since plastics are made from fossil fuels, they’re also cheaper. Corporations and the general public patronize the idea of convenience and immediate consumption whilst mindlessly throwing away what’s non-beneficial to them. So, the products which we grew up accustomed with are usually wrapped in plastics/ cartons/ styrofoams, and saying that not patronizing products which are in single-use packagings is hard since it also means letting go of the product itself which you loved and trusted your entire life (i.e. chips, chocolate cookies, pen, shampoo, soap, cosmetics, and even medicine).
Convenience, lack of accountability, and the rise of non-compostable materials turned our oceans and atmosphere into open sewers. Oceans all over the world have garbage patches while our thin atmosphere is concentrated with greenhouse gases. Carbon emissions both absorbed by the ocean waters and atmosphere wreck Earth’s balance. All these devastations are results of what’s deeply embedded within our system - as global economy: in manufacturing, transaction and consumption; and in our human nature. To solve the problem, we must go against our conditioned nature and use technology towards the side of sustainable and ecologically-inclusive growth. Policies towards ecological justice should be stronger, everybody should be held accountable of their carbon footprint, and awareness must spread at a greater scale.
P.S. : I'm aware that this article needs a lot of editing. I'm frustrated with it.
