We are in a state of environmental crisis. As someone who knows something about this, i’m really worried about the rising food crisis (due to ongoing wars in regions of russia-ukraine and israel-palestine), and waves of environmental refugees. In this strip of lands, soil is getting ruined daily.
Every bomb ruins a patch of soil including moisture, microorganisms, roots, plants, … . Imagine how much bomb, how much soil, how much land, how much farm, how much tree. Now remember 2011 syrian civil war. Now remember 2003 invasion of iraq. Now remember 1980s invasion of iran by iraq. Now remember afghanistan in the 80s and the US-led activities against soviet union via afghanistan during the cold war, eventually creating extremism.
Now think about extremism and environmental refugees.
Now think about extremism and hateful politics.
Now think about the politics of hate and how you can win elections by fear mongering.
Now think about the fear of extremism.
Now think about every war, every tension, in every corner of this planet. Walk back in time and zoom out: you see a planet getting tired and burned out of so much human tension. Human activities, or as the jargon goes Anthropocene. Anthropocene sounds important, sounds crucial, sounds big, but it’s empty of life. Anthropocene on the streets translates to times of human tensions. This is how history will remember us, if it ever survives.
Every tension, every war, every “whose dick is bigger” contest… more land damaged, more soil ruined, more trees broken, more water polluted, more people hurt and displaced.
We’re fucked (for want of a more colourful term), and some of us are too busy with emails, mortgage, sick children, family issues, HR issues, micro-managing bosses, stupid managers and politicians, … , to notice. I’ve been researching on “polycrisis” for some time now. It’s bad…
Hatred is foolish. Love is wise. War is bad. Peace is good. Lie is bad. Honesty is good.
This is the only planet we have to live on. We either learn to live together, co-exist, or we will die together.
My position on climate change is still the same: it’s an existential threat to our species.
I sincerely apologise to all of you that i became an expert in environmental security. I’m also sorry for myself, because i used to be able to watch my movies more happily. I love to watch movies of Adam McKay, Judd Apatow, and Todd Phillips. These guys are known as the “frat packagers”, a group of comedians who started a movement in comedy since mid-1990s known as “frat pack“. I’m a huge fan, to the point that I preferred to teach this sub-genre in a school, or write a thesis about Todd Phillips filmography, than writing this very blog post.
But now we have to get ready for living hot, in a dappled world, of chaos, and unknowns, at a time most politicians and people don’t know how states think.
After some years of dealing with chaotic behaviour and equifinality in complex systems, in street talk means what’s going on with people and places around the planet, i must say our equal-finality is not looking good…
In loving memory of Noam Chomsky, Edward Saiid, Howard Zinn, Bertrand Russell, Hannah Arendt, Viktor Frankl, Susan Sontag, Julia Kristeva, Alexander Heinrich McCluskey, Graham A Moore, Julie E’Silva, Rolf Tsui, and many more who spoke truth to power and people… and my own family and heritage that I’m proud of…
“Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.
I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy – ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. …
With equal passion I have sought knowledge. … A little of this, but not much, I have achieved.
Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate this evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.
This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me.”
– Bertrand Russell (The Nobel Prize in Literature 1950, read more about this on wikipedia)
