THE dangerous politics of race and religion, if it intensifies, will set Malaysia on a trajectory towards a collision course with the environment.
If leaders continue flashing ethno-religious credentials to project an image of themselves as defenders of a race and faith under threat, the nation will be overwhelmed by climate change and ill-equipped to cope with the devastating effects.
Climate change is a whole-of-planet disorder and requires a whole-of-humanity solution as everyone is responsible for the carbon footprint that is heating Earth at an alarming rate.
If the majority of voters stay anchored to parochial outlooks that emphasise communal self-importance, Malaysia will fail to pull together as part of the global community.
Campaign speeches for the Aug 12 state elections will serve as a gauge to determine if our politicians find climate change a sufficiently forceful reason to avoid violating nature’s code of pluralistic unity.
Pluralism refers to the coexistence of different cultural, ethnic and religious groups within a society while maintaining a sense of unity and cooperation.
It emphasises the value of diversity and recognises that different perspectives contribute to the strength of a nation.
Diversity is a hallowed principle of nature. Even in a jungle where the tiger is dominant, myriad other animals feature in a big way.
A nation can have a dominant ethno-religious community, such as we see in Malaysia, and yet allow many other ethnicities, cultures and religions to play significant roles. Unless we practise this rule, we will be head-on against nature.
From the day we acquire self-awareness, two pathways open up for us: to live guided by a sense of global community or to live guided by a sense of tribal identity.
Similarly, every nation at its birth is either guided by the light of multicultural globalism or driven by the fire of mono-ethnic nationalism.
Civilisation emerged from the long march of humanity out of tribalism. The invention of agriculture 12,000 years ago stirred most tribes to merge and form super-tribes, then mega-tribes and finally kingdoms.
Religions emerged as a super-glue to bond diverse spreads of people together.
However, any form of religious exclusivity and racial partisanship can only be workable in a time of climate invariance, when the global climate is in a steady state.
That time ended with the start of the Industrial Revolution around 1750, and the slow advent of climate change.
The pace has accelerated over the past 20 years and now resembles a moving car on a level road that has begun to slope downhill. The car’s speed is accelerating and the brakes are not working.
Fragmented by differences instead of united by a sense of global community, Malaysians will have no collaborative power, innovativeness and creativity to push back the tide of climate change.
If we focus on promoting communal self-interest, we cannot at the same time focus on defeating climate change. Anchored to the deep bedrock of tribalism, our minds will shut close at every mention of a global community of shared interests.
On the other hand, climate change is not a tribal force but a global phenomenon. Our tribal minds cannot grasp it nor understand its power to destroy us.
If a castle is under attack from all directions and the castle is inhabited by several tribes of people who are primarily concerned about their tribal welfare, how long will it take before the castle falls?
That is the length of time it will take for any nation to submerge under climate change. The irony is that climate change is solely caused by human activity and is a whole-of-planet reaction to our disastrous stewardship of the Earth.
Everything on the planet is connected and changing, and the change is accelerating every second. Everywhere, the heat is more scorching than in previous years, and next year will be even hotter.
The peak of 38.6°C recorded in Raub on April 16 is just the lower rung of a towering inferno as countries north of Malaysia have seen much worse.
This year, Thailand hit 44.6°C, Vietnam 44.2°C, Myanmar 43.8°C, Laos 43.5°C and Cambodia 41.6°C.
The worst hit in Southeast Asia is the Philippines, with Legazpi City recording 50°C on May 12. India saw temperatures spike to 47°C in May. Bangladesh, hitting 41.3°C, shut down all primary schools last month as students fell sick.
Do not think of cooling your heels in the far north temperate regions where summer used to be mild. Last month, Beijing issued a red alert when it roasted at 41.1°C on June 22.
Many parts of the US have seen readings above 40°C, and in Canada, the intense heat has set ablaze a forested area, larger than Selangor and Pahang combined.
Europe has now been labelled by the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service and the UN’s World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) as the fastest-warming continent on the planet.
Extreme weather phenomena, once considered rare, are now common and other “unbelievable” events are happening.
Last year, Europe suffered its worst drought in more than 500 years and 15,000 people died in heatwaves. Japan last year endured its worst heatwave since 1875.
The WMO has also confirmed that the past eight years from 2015 to 2022 were the hottest since record-keeping began 142 years ago, and it is near-certain that the next five years until 2027 will be even hotter.
According to a report by the Reuters news agency, published in theSun on July 6, July 3 marked the hottest day ever recorded globally.
Exeter University’s Global Systems Institute believes that a third of the global population will be living in dangerously hot conditions by 2080.
Indonesia has been named as one of the large countries, where 100 million inhabitants will be affected. Geographically, Malaysia lies in the same extreme heat belt.
How can we persist in living in the comfort zone of racial and religious politicking when this climate threat to our survival is growing ever stronger?
It is time for all political parties to take stock of the killer heatwaves, forest fires and raging floods that are heading our way from the higher latitude countries that are already suffering these climate effects.
Of immediate risk are persons with pre-existing health conditions and the elderly. Heat stress can aggravate underlying problems and cause more deaths from heart and kidney failure, dehydration, respiratory difficulties and stroke.
Although heat-induced, the extra deaths may not be counted as such. Less obvious will be the rising number of highway accidents due to fatigue that results from lack of sleep during a heatwave.
The crisis is real as the highest land surface temperature in Malaysia was only 28°C in 2015. Eight years later, it has jumped up 10 degrees.
Zoom out to the global picture and we face a “truly terrifying” future.
In the words of United Nation (UN) human rights chief Volker Turk: “Our environment is burning. It is melting. It is flooding. It is depleting. It is drying.” He said this in an address to the UN Human Rights Council on July 3.
If you are still focused on promoting the interests of your race and/or religion exclusively, heed this poetic advice: “Live just for your community and you live in vain. Embrace all communities, and boundless love shall you obtain. A tapestry of lives intertwined, a harmonious terrain.”
The writer champions interfaith harmony. Comments: letters@thesundaily.com
