THE manifesto of every political party in the 15th general election (GE15) should bear the same title, “Pull together to win”, accompanied by a tug-of-war sketch depicting humanity on one side and climate change on the other side. Unless all political parties pull the rope together and not in discordant ways, Malaysia is heading for a chaotic future with Doomsday Eve just 28 years away.
Last week saw the release of a cascade of frightening climate reports. The United Nations (UN) issued a warning that catastrophic impacts are now 20 times more likely to occur than at the start of the 20th century. Countries are failing in the fight against climate change, pointing Earth towards a future marked by flooding, wildfires, drought, heat waves and species extinction, the UN warned. Tens of millions more people worldwide will be exposed to life-threatening heat waves, and scarcity of food and water.
The UN Children’s Fund, or Unicef, in its most recent report said: “By 2050, virtually every child on earth, over two billion children, is forecast to face more frequent heatwaves, regardless of whether the world achieves a low greenhouse gas emission scenario ... or a very high greenhouse gas emission scenario.”
The Lancet health journal raised concerns not just about the
direct health consequences including
heat-related mortality, pregnancy complications and cardiovascular disease, but also the indirect costs
such as expansion of habitats suitable to mosquitoes that carry dengue fever or malaria.
“We see how climate change is driving severe health impacts all around the world,” The Lancet said in a statement.
The world is caught in a last-gasp race to ensure a livable future, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has warned. According to the World Resources Institute, the current trajectory of global temperature increase is “dangerously high”.
Two recent books, Nomad Century and Climate Change and the Nation State, have painted a depressing scenario of a future world characterised by end-of-scale weather events in many regions that exceed the human ability to adapt. Such extremities that have never been experienced before will compel entire populations to attempt fleeing across borders to safer lands, but climate migration of this magnitude is likely to trigger mass violence.
One of the books argues for harnessing the power of nationalism and redirecting it towards a full commitment to pull the brakes on climate change. This requires all human activities in every nation to be kept within the limits of the ecology and
the environment.
How environment-friendly is Malaysian politics? The first 12 general elections from 1959 to 2008 were conducted in a business-as-usual style, despite this period being the time of steadily rising climate change. What is this business-as-usual style? It is the business of race and religion deeply embedded in the core character of many influential political parties. One indicator of a flat trend weaving through those 50 years was the consistent voter turnout of less than 80%.
But change was noticeable in 2013, with the near 85% turnout. The trend change was confirmed in 2018, when voter turnout remained above 80%. Will there be a new trend of climate change concern in 2022? There are still three more days to Nomination Day.
Unfortunately, the greater likelihood is that our political parties will go to the polls as if they are going to war or stepping into a gladiatorial arena. Three years ago, MPs were already beating the war drums in the Dewan Rakyat. During one session, MPs yelled that should one side make a declaration of war, the other side would welcome a war. MPs get a RM500 daily attendance allowance, in addition to their huge monthly salaries.
Last week, one mentri besar dismissed the challenge of heavyweight opponents, with a buoyant assertion that his party’s election machinery will “kill them off”. Such war talk reveals
the disturbing fact that Malaysian politicians remain stuck in gladiatorial combat mode and are oblivious to the hostile systemic changes taking place in nature. Climate change is a whole-of-nature show of force.
As climate change has become the shared ingredient in all our lives, a whole-of-nation approach requires every individual and institution in Malaysia to abandon the nature-defiant paradigm of modern living and revert to the nature-compliant paradigm of the forest people. By all means have a luxurious lifestyle, as what is more important is your paradigm. If you wear only cotton, use paper bags instead of plastic, and get your electricity supply from solar panels, then you are nature compliant.
If you embrace diversity and accept that differences play a crucial role in maintaining vibrancy in human society, just as it does in a natural ecosytem, you are nature compliant. But if you care to promote only the welfare of your race (that is a political term), your religion and your political party, you are nature defiant. Sectarian electioneering along the lines of “Malays look after Malays, Chinese look after Chinese, Indians look after Indians,” has no place in ecological nationalism.
When you place your ethnicity, your religion and your political party on a pedestal above all others, you are going against the holism of nature. Nature is our beloved mother and our God in action. Anyone who clings to a nature-defiant paradigm is defying God, no matter how strong his religious faith.
In the year 1750, when carbon dioxide levels in the air began its climb, no religion alerted humanity to the possibility of climate change. In the thousand years before 1750, CO2 levels had hugged the 280 parts per million figure. In 1960, the level touched 317ppm and climate change effects became noticeable. Still, no religion was aware of the arrival of this new deadly phenomenon.
In 1990, the level hit 350ppm. It is now 419ppm. The last time that atmospheric CO2 concentration hit this level was 2.5 million years ago.
Religions in the distant past helped to build new civilisations. Today, we need to build a planet-wide ecological civilisation, and to accomplish this task all religions must stop advancing their own interests. They should live for the sake of others by forming an interfaith coalition and pushing all political parties to likewise form a broad coalition for human unity with nature. In any ferocious political or religious struggle for dominance, the great and the small perish together.
Our nation must undergo a transformational systemic change, and this has to begin with politics and religion. Climate change provides the reason why on Nomination Day, all candidates must display a unified national identity rather than campaign as Malays, Indians, Chinese, Sabah
and Sarawak bumiputras, Muslims, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists.
What benefit is it to you should your favourite gladiatorial team win big
and slaughter all the heavyweight opponents? Surely on Doomsday Eve in the year 2050, the ones at the top will be the first to topple over the cliff edge.
The writer champions
interfaith harmony.
Comments: letters@thesundaily.com
