I’ve been aware for a while that I have a condition called climate anxiety.
At my advanced age, I shouldn’t really care that much what happens when I’m gone, but it’s just so sad to know that so many wondrous and beautiful living things, and even landscapes, are disappearing or being altered from what we once knew.
Of course, there were past extinctions in the history of the planet but this time, harm is unequivocally attributed to us, to human action.
And not just human exploitation of the natural world, but a reckless economic system based on greed, on thoughtlessness, and uncontrolled population growth that has encroached on all parts of the planet, and littered the earth and the oceans with trash.
Historian and public intellectual Yuval Harari has added another angle: “One of the most powerful forces in human history, actually, is human stupidity.” Science keeps telling us what is damaging to the environment, and we keep doing it.
James Hansen told the US Congress in 1988 of the dangers of fossil fuels, and their use has only grown since then.
Greenhouse gasses are taking their toll: heat waves, wild fires, droughts, more frequent extreme climate events, changes in ocean currents.
And by the way, do not believe EDC propaganda that Negros Oriental is lucky to have “clean” and renewable energy; the Noreco energy mix that we buy still has a significant percentage of power from coal-fired power plants.
The Aboitiz group is apparently going to open a new one.
Also, it’s not just about climate. Of the nine planetary boundaries that Johan Rockstrom and 28 international scientists began to research and identify in 2009, six have already been crossed today.
The idea then was to identify environmental limits to ensure a safe operating space for humanity to survive and flourish.
Not just climate, it’s also about the stratosphere, the biosphere, the state of the oceans (acidification and off-the-charts sea surface temperatures in 2023), systems of land use, and other metrics.
Scientists keep issuing dire warnings, and recently the UN Secretary General said the world is at a moment of truth, a race against time with radical action needed within two years to prevent climate collapse.
Small and underdeveloped countries like the Philippines that emit low levels of carbon dioxide and methane bear little responsibility for global warming or climate change, although even that little emission contributes to the whole problem whose impacts hit us hard.
On top of those climate change impacts, the ill effects of our own environmental exploitation and mismanagement cause us harm: deforestation, loss of mangroves, coastline alterations, bad agricultural practices, poor water management, the promotion of fossil fuel transportation, pollution of all forms, proliferation of solid waste.
On this latter, most visible problem, Dumaguete City’s 10-Year Solid Waste Management Plan identifies non-cooperation and negative attitudes of the people as a “root cause of the problem” while practically exempting commercial establishments and the business sector from responsibility.
Actually, extremely weak enforcement of existing environmental protection laws is probably the true “root cause” that points to a lack of prioritization, and of funding by political leaders.
Try and name major local (or even national) climate or environment leaders and advocates from among our political leaders, no names come to mind.
Listen to the self-promotion of those planning to run for public office in the next elections. No one even mentions climate disruptions, or the threats of extinction the world faces. No one mentions all the research reports on finding micro- and nanoplastics in human blood, in organs of the body, in the fish we eat, the water we drink, (this same June, microplastic particles were found in the penises of men with erectile dysfunction!) — even as every vendor, store, and supermarket hands out many thousands of single-use plastic bags a day in blatant violation of existing ordinances and laws.
Now there’s a “root cause” for you.
Of course, because June has been Environment Month in the Philippines since 1988 (Thank you, President Cory), there are obligatory activities and celebrations, this year, a video music-making contest, a video poster, clean-ups, tree and mangrove planting, youth camps, seminars, awards, of course. All good, all done before, without lasting effects: solid waste is still everywhere, open burning of wastes (particulates!), cigarette butts everywhere, more fossil-fueled vehicles than ever, the mountains still as bald as ever, humans still mindlessly consuming (Shop like a Billionaire!) and generating waste.
For most people, and apparently, politicians, too, environment problems are annoying but the responsibility of somebody else, not theirs.
Most people want to concentrate on their personal desires and amusements. And anyway, the more dire prospects of climate disruption are thought to be in the far distance, and of no immediate urgency. And if things get really bad, surely, human ingenuity will come up with techno-fixes. But what if they don’t?
There’s a category of scientists and advocates called “doomers” who interpret the most complex and updated climate data to find that tipping points and breaches of planetary boundaries are not likely to be reversed, and that the destruction of ecosystems and the natural world will happen.
A post-human planet is imagined where, without the destructive humans, maybe the earth will regenerate, and become something new — like what happened after past extinctions.
But even doomers, like mathematician Dr. Eliot Jacobson, say they love the earth, and are endlessly sad that this wonderful planet, and all the glorious things that some humans created, the wonders and beauties of the natural world will disappear, with no one to remember them.
There’s a strong counter-movement, of course, of others who say there is still time to correct our dangerous current trajectory, and to remedy problems.
But as I listen and learn from online climate science lectures, debates, and reports on such matters as the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (creating ocean currents), the melting of polar and Greenland ice, atmospheric aerosols, species loss, and more, it can be overwhelming to know what the earth is going through, what humans have done.
It is frightening, and it is sad to no longer be able to say the word “future” for the earth to our children and grandchildren, without knowing what that future will be like.
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Author’s email: [email protected]
