“ If we……should inherit an earth
where the grass goes nostalgic
at the mere mention of green
and the sky looks out of its depth
when reminded of blue….
Should we dance
or break into gnashing of teeth
at the news of our inheritance?”
This was John Agard’s performance on 26th May 2016 at the RSA in London for a program supported by Climate Change Collaboration. I was enamored by this poem and in my stints at teaching, I would recite it to students whenever environmental matters came about. However, I quickly realized that while poetry was capable of elevating one’s consciousness, it was of no use as a protest against the environmental desecration carried out by giant corporations.
It was during the Prestige oil spill in 2002 that a person named “Manfred Gnädinger” suffered a most extraordinary death- “Morreu de melancolía”- died of sadness as the locals called it. Manfred was a man who lived in the coastal areas of the Camelle- an area that was blacked/ tarred out by the spill. Ken Saro Wiwa was a great environmentalist from Nigeria who fought for the autonomy of the Ogoni people who were affected heavily by the drilling for petroleum in their area. He was later executed by the Nigerian government, or shall we say murdered, for there were sanctions imposed by the European Union to the United States against Nigeria for such a heinous act of snuffing out its great champion of an environmentalist. There’s also the documentation of the Wiwa Family lawsuits against Royal Dutch Shell.
Anyone who says that the solutions to environmental problems are easy or they can be achieved through some ululations on climate marches doesn’t have my backing. There’s a reason why there’s a noticeable fraction of environmentalists who absolutely abhor across-the-ocean ritzy conference-cum-party going types. Some reports had it that the COP 28 was the biggest carbon-emitting conference ever. So when I talked to the most articulate Izabella Koziell- the Deputy Director General of ICIMOD- she had a sense of irony about environmental concerns. And if you’ve been to England, they say that irony is the cream in the coffee, a laugh at the face against boredom.
This conversation was amongst a most memorable one I had, for I was awed by her breadth of travels, her unwavering work, her honesty- and I was wasn’t being facetious when I lightly remarked that I wish she has a government recognition, like the one that the former Deputy Director General of ICIMOD had.
She said that she was doing her bit to have a environmentally friendly lifestyle and I was quietly drawn into another of the poems from RSA:
And You
Haven’t really played your part until your
Lifestyle reflects a change of heart. It’s a
Continuous process, I’m still working on it myself but
Technology plays a major part…
I wish that everyone like Izabella did their bit (and more), for the environmental concerns are grave. When a book titled “The Uninhabitable Earth” with all its environmental alarmism was reviewed, a critic said, “Some readers will find Mr. Wallace-Wells’s outline of possible futures alarmist. He is indeed alarmed. You should be, too”
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The two men who are at the forefront of WiseDumb podcasts are Karan Bhatta and Rupesh Sah who are researchers, educators and media personalities. You can reach out to them for a collaboration:
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