Environment Catastrophes Are Reflections of Humans’ Destructive Ways
The series of environmental catastrophes of destructive super-typhoons namely, Kristine, Leon, Marsi, Nika and now Opel that have wrecked so much havoc, where thousands were killed and tens of thousands rendered homeless in several regions of our country is indeed a wake-up call to all Filipinos. But environmental disasters are not only happening in our country but much worse, globally. Let it be known by everyone that the start of 2020s wasn’t easy worldwide as a new decade has dawned to a world now not only awash in thunderstorm, super hurricanes but wildfires, heat waves and droughts as we watched in horror catastrophe after catastrophe. As reported, “Direct loses from the Florida hurricane alone were more than $1 trillion and the collapse of structures and the economy.” This painful truism is well documented that, “Since the turn of the century, an intensifying cycle of drought and hotter temperatures, combined with more and more people living in forested areas, has created the ideal environment for megafires, not only in California but also in Portugal, Greece, Tasmania, Indonesia, Siberia and countless other places around the world. In California alone 100 million trees died between 2010 and 2020 due to drought and invasive insects pushed into new habitats to the warming weather. And as lightning and thunderstorms continue to spread northward with the warming weather, fires became regular occurrences in Greenland.”
We now realize that indeed “our house is on fire,” as we are grieving a world, we know is never coming back but always hopeful that a better world would take its place. But how? Shall we allow our civilization to be continuously sacrificed for the opportunity of a very small number of people to continue making enormous amounts of money? Are we still blind to the painful truism that it is the sufferings of the many which pay for the luxuries of a few? Shall we allow the One Percent Regime of the super-rich to kill Mother Earth?
As disaster after disaster struck, humanity is faced with mix of grief and rage where mass protests are now looming in several countries. Against this backdrop, the climate movements have loomed worldwide that linked with protest movements in Chile, India, Hong Kong, Haiti, Ecuador, Lebanon, Cambodia, Bolivia, and Papua. Though each protest focused on different issues, from pro-democracy and anti-austerity movements to anti-war and anti-capitalism. It has become imperative to mobilize people around the world with a firm realization that it is no longer possible or necessary to separate climate emergency from lived realities.
Lead by a young environmental activist Greta Thunberg, the youth climate strikes grew into a global general strike. Hundreds of millions of people were on the streets every week, protesting the wars in the Middle East, police violence, the collapsing economies, gross inequities, social injustices, the super-rich sacrificing Mother Earth to the altar of greed and profit and the counter other ways on how the future being stolen by a flawed economic paradigm called Neo-Liberal Capitalism. But the climate emergency captured the most attention. We people of Mindanao, the land of the brave and the free, should now forge our oneness to liberate the poor and the oppressed and to protect God’s vanishing creation otherwise the allegation that we are a country of coward people will be proven right. Let us therefore close down the 6 coal-fired power plants operating in various parts of Mindanao.
Indeed, what a crazy, broken and shameful world we are living right now! The crisis and unimaginable sufferings the billions of people facing right now because the super-rich cannot moderate their greed, can also be attributed to our modern way of life, buried in unbridled materialism and consumerism. We have to change our lifestyle and our whole belief system as we have ransacked nature, treating it as a mere resource. We must now realize who truly we are as we are all embodied spirits, more spirit than body, having been created in the image and likeness of God – as FORMLESS CONSCIOUSNESS, this is the truism that must be the basis of our existence so that the development of the spirit must be the priority rather than be enslaved to the whims and caprices of the body and the mundane. Let us therefore go to the sublime by maximizing our inner values and never on maximizing consumer goods and short-term profit. Let us obey the pronouncement of Lord Jesus, DENY THYSELF. If humans be continuously blinded by the EGO that has transformed the beautiful blue planet into hell to satisfy the whims and capriciousness of the body, then the mission of the great spiritual leaders has no effect. Let Jesus’ teaching now reverberate: The Kingdom of heaven is within us. Thus, develop inner values not material values! The current Satanic system is just for material values, a great deception. Let us now correct and counter that deception by tearing down the current system and to build a new world that works for everyone. Such is the essence of one’s life, inspired by hopeful vision of the future otherwise life becomes meaningless, buried in the trivialities of life and religions.
It is in this context that the Satanic Ego that has produced the current system of Neo-Liberal Capitalism based on a flawed Darwin’s theory of survival of the fittest should now be stopped. That mindset of the strongest controlling everything has worked for the beast in a world where the name of the game is survival. It should not be now where the name of the game should be love, service, sharing, cooperation and oneness with all of God’s creation. It should be unacceptable that only 8 super-rich families have a total wealth equivalent to the total assets of 4 billion people based on the study of Oxfam. The wealth of some one thousand wealthiest corporations is greater than the combined assets of the 99% of the 8 billion people on earth. Such shameful inequity is shown in London, one of the richest cities in the world, yet, a quarter of its population live in poverty. In the United States, there is a wider disparity between the rich and the poor that in any other developed country, and over the last few decades, this gap has more than doubled. In New York, the richest and biggest city in the world, some 88,000 Americans are homeless and some living in the streets, digging garbage for left-over. This is also true in other big cities in the United States where totaling hundreds of thousands are homeless and living in extreme poverty. In fact, one poor American commits suicide every thirty minutes out of poverty. You may google that in U-TUBE.
It is indeed a great paradox that the most powerful country in the world known as the Modern-day American Imperialism that owns and controls more than one half of the world’s resources and have world-wide domination with all its nuclear arsenals is ruled by a newly elected narcistic leader whose aim is “to make America Great Again.” We should be disturbed by such proclamation because the super-rich Trans-National Corporations will intensify their domination over us. This is the reason why the number one intellectual and activist in the world, Dr. Noam Chomsky, has initiated the Occupy Movement in the USA to tear down U.S. Imperialism. Sine 2011, the Movement has been conducting protest rallies and more than 7,000 of the members have been arrested and imprisoned. The movement has now spread globally, occupying the mind and hearts of the compassionate earthlings, SHOUTING – DOWN WITH U.S. IMPERIALISM, WE NEED AN EGALITARIAN WORLD, LET US NOT RANSACK NATURE, SERVE THE PEOPLE, PROTECT THE ENVIRONMENT. Well, in advocating for what is true, what is right and what is just, they are being imprisoned. This had happened before in our country some five decades ago when during the First Quarter Storm, courageous Filipino activists for rallying against U.S. Imperialism SHOUTING IBAGSAK ANG IMPERYALISMO were also arrested, imprisoned and even killed. TAMA PALA SILA PERO HINUHULI AT PINAPATAY. ANG SIGAW NOON NILA AY ANG SIGAW NGAYON NG BUONG MUNDO! Indeed, how oppressed our people are especially the Indigenous Peoples as the enrichment of the oligarchs and foreign investors means their impoverishment and displacement. PAGLUMABAN, PATAY AGAD as some 101 IP Chieftains and Lady Chieftains were victims of extra-judicial killings since 2016 for resisting the wanton grabbing of their ancestral domain. Until now, no justice has been done. Will you not tear down that current system that allows massive injustice to our people?
As pronounced in Ecclesiastes, “For everything there is a purpose under heaven.” It must dawn upon us now humans that indeed environmental catastrophes are the reflection of our combative and destructive ways of thinking based on selfish desire for wealth, fame and power. Let us all reflect on this truism and trailblaze the much-needed social transformation to wage a compassionate revolution for Mother Earth. This is based on our firm belief that the climate issue is a matter of survival of all life. Let us now tear down the current system that is sacrificing the people and GAIA (Mother Earth) to the Satanic Altar of greed and profit. It is not an easy task because based on the Study of Oxfam, “High veneration to the profit motive has already captured the mindset of all governments, all institutions, all universities, the mainstream media and religious groups.” How can we tear-down a system that is well-supported by the military, backed-up by Modern-Day American Imperialism whose dictum is “War is the Health of the Nation.” Indeed, while billions of people mostly in Asia and Africa are facing unimaginable sufferings, living in hunger and extreme poverty, trillions of dollars are spent annually on manufacturing armaments by the super-rich corporations and in return, gain enormous profits out of wars, supplying armaments to both warring factions. If indeed God has biblically ordered, THOU SHALL NOT KILL, shall we not tear down the current system that allows wars to prove one’s dominion? This painful truism is now happening in Gaza, Palestine where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians mostly women and innocent children have already been killed by Israel in cahoots with American imperialism not only through bombs but including the poisoning of the Gaza’s water-pipeline. That bitter truth alone should be the subject of our highest condemnation. Christians where are you?
As predicted by Nostradamus, life on earth can either end through nuclear war or through environmental catastrophe. That’s how broken and crazy our world has become and we humans are still in deep slumber. What I don’t understand is, despite all these painful realities that have reduced humans to mere beasts, what then are religions for? Great spiritual leaders like Buddha, Mohammad, Bahaullah and Jesus Christ, the Son of God, may be very bothered right now as they came thousands of years ago when there were just about tens of thousands of human beings world-wide living a simple life in oneness with one another and with nature. Now that humans have leaped up to 8 billion, killing each other and the beautiful blue planet that has been a mother to us all, it is at this time that we need spiritual enlightening. It has become of utmost importance the firm stand of great religions to debunk the mundane and go to the sublime, not just through prayers but most importantly, through ETHICAL ACTIONS. And when that happens, a compassionate revolution will bring to the fore the essence of life that is love and service, to protect the sacredness of nature and of all life for a new earth – all for God’s greater glory!
