This year's Earth Day will be starkly different from all the ones I have spent at school.
As I am stuck staring at the pale white-yellow walls of my room that confine me, I find myself itching to do more. Struggling to speak out, try to make an impact- in a world that is deteriorating in so many ways.
As one problem overshadows the previous, we forget some of the other projects, passions and movements we have been working on for so long. Living life under the coronavirus has become the new normal, especially living in Singapore- a country that’s been hit especially hard.
It’s only taken a couple of months for the narrative presented on the news to completely transform. Reeling off the Davos’s World Economic Forum in January, I could turn to social media and news channels to read about youth really trying to “change the world”- persuade governments and turn the tides against the older generations. I can’t even fathom how much has changed since February. Now, everywhere I look, it’s more coronavirus statistics, policies and “how to stay safe” manuals.
Climate change, not a priority?
Countries are now setting aside incredibly large aid packages as a response to the virus- as an almost “last effort ditch attempt” to avoid the coronavirus getting even further away from their respective government's grasps.
But, I still feel unsettled. The coronavirus has not only paused our environmental studies at school, but it has also dampened our generations effort’s against climate change. Though Greta Thunberg started an online “Talks for Future", it is hard to continue at the same speed.
With federal help directed towards fighting at the coronavirus front, I can only expect that federal support for countries’ climate change efforts will not be a priority (as it promisingly seemed a couple of months ago).
There is also talk and evidence of most countries having severe, debilitating economic consequences. In fact, just recently, a record 3.3 million Americans filed for unemployment- just the beginning of a downward trend that is expected to hit over till next year.
As smaller firms are forced to close down, make employment cuts and hence reduce production as the demand rapidly decreases, I know it would be completely foolish to assume that they can afford to switch to sustainable means of production- which is unavoidably more expensive for the firm.
In a way, we are back to square one- dependent on grassroots organisations and just personal changes to slowly tackle the environmental problem. We can't expect governmental backing now - or at least for a while.
The response to COVID-19 and climate change
I wouldn't want to go chase at windmills- try to be angry at something that none of us can really help. What frustrates me, however, is that so many parallels can be drawn from the response to the coronavirus, and the response to climate change and most large humanitarian /environmental movements.
It’s many of our innate tendencies to only act when we have to- only when we are face-to-face with danger, rather than try a preventative approach. Why did many young people not feel the need to practice social distancing when necessary- instead, chose to continue holidaying and partying? The idea that one does not need to act just because it doesn’t affect them is indeed frustrating.
I didn't even have the choice to think this way- living with my elderly grandma, I had to start isolating measures way before they were put in place- shuttling between home and school every day, declining birthday party invites and friend hangouts.
Only when a strict governmental clampdown occurred, the youth were forced to stay at home. Even now in Singapore, where we haven’t had a complete shut-down yet, I see pictures and videos of friends continuing their normal lifestyles.
It is almost disturbing how similar this is to the environmental response. Criticisms coming from Greta Thunberg and other youth activists suggest that since climate change, so far, has been an invisible devil, people haven’t seen the need to act quickly.
This mindset has slowly allowed climate change to take a very real and present form- fires and floods that run rampant throughout the world. I just want to know when the wake-up call will be (like the coronavirus)- when we will all realise that our world is truly “burning around us” - Greta Thunberg.
I hope you all celebrate Earth Day- turning off your lights and realising what you can do over the next year to make a change. For now, please stay at home!
And with that, I would like to end my blog with this poignant quote:
Only When The Last Tree Has Died
& The Last River Been Poisoned
& The Last Fish Been Caught
Will We Realize We Cannot Eat Money.
- Unknown author
