#system breaking

Mind breaking. Human breaking. Animal breaking. System breaking. Body breaking. Just taking someone and turning it into nothing for my own pleasure.

The need to act on climate change has become so urgent that mainstream voices are calling for civil disobedience to address it. The IPCC's latest report warns that we only have 12 years to keep global warming within 1.5°C. In the UK, the non-violent group Extinction Rebellion is calling for 'low level and higher risk acts of civil disobedience', and is backed by 94 prominent public figures, including MPs, MEPs, academics and religious leaders. The civil contract, they say, is broken: governments have failed to stand up for our future. For many, climate catastrophe is not 12 years away, but a fact today. The decimation of major crops through drought is one factor behind the 'caravan' of migrants walking north from Central America. What happens to the social contract, and to companies' licence to operate, when inadequate leadership meets food, water and job shortages? What level of leadership counts as 'enough'? Enough to keep us below 1.5°C is a question of science; enough to stem civil unrest is one of perception. Which of these actions you spotted strike you as 'enough'? How much further do they need to go? 1.      California law mandates plant-based meals in hospitals and prisons 2.      Malaysian government commits to maintaining forest cover and halting palm oil expansion 3.      Danish government considers labelling food based on climate impacts 4.      China harvests 'sea rice' as part of plan to feed 80 million people 5.      The European Parliament has voted to ban single-use plastics Each of the above highlighted signals of the changes flagged by the curator suggested some scenarios of the future from how different nations handle their survivals.

1. California prescribes how patients and prisoners ‘should’ be fed with what as the authority considers as ‘good solution’ to the food security which is partly caused by climate change. 

In this path, the city authority chooses a food rationing policy principle by MANDATING people’s life styles. Since the governments cannot directly force people how they live in a ‘democratic’ and ‘freedom’ world, the city authority uses those who lost their freedom temporary or permanently because of illness and the imprisonment as the sacrifice animals on the altar. Instead of addressing the root causes of climate change and the broader range of complex issues causing food security and the interactions of these two big topics, the solution is forced upon certain sectors of the society who are deprived of their choices of live style in their captivity. I am not saying plant based diet is good or bad here. Even it is a wise choice of health, may be working well to some people, it can’t be a forced upon choice from the authority out of political ideology. This is an authoritarian no choice of ‘climate sustainability’.

2. Malaysia commits to maintain forest cover by halting palm oil expansion. On this path, the authority understand the connection between forests in capturing carbon emission and releasing oxygen to the atmosphere. Policies are made to address one of the important root causes of deforestation-unsustainable palm oil production. The Minister explained that the Malaysian government will not allow any further expansion of oil palm plantations in the country. In addition to her statement regarding expansion, Kok detailed the Ministry’s objective of achieving 100% Malaysian Sustainable Palm Oil Certification among existing producers by the end of 2019.

With Malaysia’s recent 50% forest commitment, could we see other nations setting similar objectives and, perhaps, a global pursuit of this one elegant objective? What might be required for nations with other geographic, demographic, and economic characteristics to conserve 50% of their land?

3. On this path, the government doesn’t force onto how their citizens live a sustainable lifestyle. Instead, the government serves as an information provider to help consumers understand the footprints of their consumption patterns and habits on climate change. The assumption is consumers may be ‘nudged’ to the environmentally responsible path if more information is provided. The mandatory obligations are put on the producers, growers, retailers and wholesalers up to all the stakeholders who are responsible to put the food end to end on the shelves.

The challenge on this ‘nudging’ approach is how to get the providers of information to make the data in an easy to understand manner. Think about our current frequently criticised ill presented ‘food nutrition’ labels, who will automatically understand the meaning of the nutrition facts on our bodies from reading the labels on the package?  x g of sodium; y g of sugar, the difficult chemical names of preservatives, artificial colours and all other adds on? The ‘good’ and ‘bad’ cholesterol hidden in the difficult names of fats, the calories, etc, etc. For most ordinary consumers who are not chemists, doctors or nutritionists, ALL the additional information means NOTHING because it is incomprehensible. Have the ‘food nutrition’ labels nudged people to live a healthier lifestyle? Hardly we can say so. How many people even pay attention to the details of small prints on the food labels? If the current food labelling system works clumsily to understand, how can further food labelling requirements on climate impacts connect to people? Let alone guiding them to change consumption habits.

4. China opts for genetically modified food to tackle the degraded environment. No choice out of no choice in a everything state prescribed life. Same as California. Precisely, California mimics authoritarian regimes’ coerced lifestyle. You are lying on the beds or you are in the prison cells, you are the caged creatures. Therefore you can only take it or leave it for whatever being put in the bowls and on the plates. 

 5. EU bans single use plastic bags. The ‘solution’ is blaming all the environmental and climatic issues to one witch. Same as path 1 and 4, the underlying root causes of environmental degradation are NOT addressed but a superficial quick fix becomes the generic painkiller. 

How about the HEAPS of environmental unfriendly packaging in the global supply drains? How about the practical re-use of the ‘single’ use plastic bags? Reality is domestic households recycle the plastic bags as rubbish bins liners. Some people reuse it for next purchase. Some people blessed with creative arts turned the ‘single’ use plastic bags into something else that can are more durably reusable. Before these , many of these ‘single’ used plastic bags have been long made from biodegradable materials. So if the ‘single’ use plastic bags are already environmentally friendly because they are biodegradable in the landfills, why then they become the ready witch to be hunted? 

The rationale for banning the plastic bags is they end up in the seas, rivers, lakes and oceans, therefore become an important contributing factor for marine pollution. Yet the solution does not address HOW did the plastic bags, whether they are single use or multiple uses end up at the wrong places? THE WITCH IS NOT THE PLASTIC BAGS BY THEMSELVES. THE CULPRITS ARE THE RUBBISH LITTERS. THEY DISCARD WASTE IRRESPONSIBLY WHETHER THE RUBBISH IS PLASTIC BAGS OR WHATEVER BEING THROWN thoughtlessly for the sake of ‘convenience’. 

In less developed countries, primitive municipal waste infrastructures and waste treatment systems lead to leakage of rubbish. And that doesn’t even account for the import of toxic rubbish that are poorly treated by the poorest people who have no other decent choice to make a living than doing the dirty jobs.

Some advocates of climate change and environment conservation have lost sight on a systematic holistic approach when prescribing ‘solutions’. In rushing to press for some  quick fixes to justify  ‘results’ of some ‘great appealing achievements’, they put up a superficial and fragmented “salvation”that makes it easier for vested interests across the political, economic and social spectrum, such as political parties, big businesses and their representative groups to get concession for compromises. It is not uncommon that suck kinds of shallow and superficial quick fix approaches leave behind more harmful impacts to the environment in long term.