Are these our last days on planet earth as we know it?

There is a lot to worry about these days. Humanity seems to be assaulted on all fronts. Doomsday seems more impending than at any other time. I worry. 

The Amazon, which provides 20 percent of the world’s oxygen, is burning and Brazil’s leader Bolsonado seems not to really care about it. He seems to be of the same mindset as Trump who basically has no grasp of the whole global warming climate phenomenon that 98 percent of all scientists have been warning about for decades. These leaders are climate-change deniers. 

The catastrophe is almost a sure thing although some scientists say we have five to 10 years to change our ways. If we do not act concertedly as a whole human race, we will be doomed to suffer in a planet which is increasingly getting hotter and we will struggle to survive all its attendant climatic consequence. As a result, many islands all over the world will be drowned by the oceans as big ice sheets melt into the sea.

There is the trade war that is causing a lot of anxiety all over the world. Markets are jittery. Currencies are shaky. 

There are the massive protests in Hong Kong and Taiwan whose people are fighting for their own freedoms amid Chinese threats of total control and hegemony. The countries along the West Philippines Sea are also being squeezed by China to give up territory. 

Everywhere you look there seems to be trouble of some kind brewing. Dictatorships are reigning in many countries of the world. A nuclear bomb actually exploded in Russia last month. North Korea is testing missiles non-stop. The divide between the rich and poor, citizens and their governments are getting wider than ever everywhere.

The world goes on even as many wonder how much longer it will take before a massive breakdown of systems happen.

Between the apathetic and those who are concerned about what is happening outside of one’s own world, I find myself among the latter. I have always been interested and concerned about the state of my community, village, city, country and yes, the rest of the world. It has always mattered to me that some people have to suffer greatly. The suffering of strangers, of people I am not even related to can affect me greatly. My empathy and compassion are easily aroused. I can easily identify with them. At the cost of sounding like a cliche, I feel their pain.

I know a lot people who can dismiss suffering very easily. They readily brush it off. When suffering happens to other people they can be very dismissive. Some even make jokes about it. They simply do not care. I do not understand how anyone can be like that. 

I remember my uncle who had to endure suffering during Marcos’ time. He said, “Martial law is OK until it happens to you.” Maybe for many people, misfortune has to happen to them first before they can have empathy towards others. 

Apathy and indifference are the last things the world needs now. We have to awaken and solve the big problems that threaten every sentient being on earth. 

Today I read an article that said that under the regime of cataclysmic climate change, the rich will be spared more than the poor. In terms of countries, we all know that the richest nations were and still are the biggest contributors of CO2 emissions and garbage on the planet. And yet it is the poor who will ultimately and unfairly suffer more.  

I really hope I am just exaggerating but I do believe the day of reckoning is just around the corner. The dreaded predictions are happening sooner than expected. The ice sheets of Greenland and Iceland were still supposed to hold from melting until 2050. Two months ago, some of them already started to disappear.

The destructive forest fires are not just in the Amazon but also in Bolivia, Indonesia, Russia, and huge parts of Africa. In a Brahma Kumaris talk I attended about a month and a half ago, an esteemed yogi was asked how people could help Mother Nature recover from climate change. The yogi answered by saying that she is not too worried about Mother Nature because the natural world will adjust and heal no matter what happens. It is mankind that she says will suffer greatly and whose survival is more threatened. I sadly agree.

Sometimes, I imagine that we may be enjoying our last “normal” days on earth before things turn really crazy very quickly. Storms, rains, floods, droughts and other natural weather conditions are becoming more extreme and dangerous and occurring more often. Never has it happened that Alaska had temperatures that were in the 80s Fahrenheit. Yet it did two months ago. Unbelievable. 

There is a great battle going on in the world. It is between those who see the world and humanity as sacred and worth saving. They aim for a more sustainable, inclusive way of life. And then there are those who see everything solely from the point of view of generating profit, wealth and accumulating more power for its own sake.

More and more people know that things cannot go on as they have been. We have to transition to something more sustainable. Can the old business model of aiming for unlimited profits above all else continue? Has capitalism reached a point where it is now unsustainable and must transform to something more egalitarian? 

I am not against profit or business. But here’s a thought I picked up on the net  I want to leave you with. When we see people who excessively hoard things in their apartments and can’t let them go, or people who are addicted to substances and can’t stop, don’t we see the same perverse similarity in the excessive and obsessive pursuit of money and power? Isn’t it a form of addiction too? Isn’t it a sickness?

The climate crisis is in large part a psycho-spiritual one. The only solution is to awaken and move the world into a different direction.

The big questions is, can mankind wake up in time to save the world? Or are we living the last days of life on earth as we still know it? 

I don’t want to leave you with questions. We all know the answers. If your appreciation of the problem is still in the level of intellectual understanding, bring it down. Feel it so it becomes visceral. Can you feel the sadness, impending loss and the pain?

In your own way, act now. Do something daily in the direction of saving the world. Who else will do it?