A lot of things have been on my mind lately; the genocidal apartheid occurring in Palestine, the number of people dying due to environmental and climate change, and that we’re now in the era of Global Boiling, as António Guterres, the UN Secretary General stated in his speech to the U.N.

It’s scary; we passed the point of no return 30 years ago. We’ve been saying –  for as long as I can remember – that what we’re doing to this beautiful planet is not good. Now, we’re beyond “Climate change.” The climate has already changed and it’s time for you naysayers to jump on the “we need to fix this yesterday!” bandwagon.  We’re in the era of “Global Boiling,” which means the earth is much hotter than it should be and we’re going to be affected by this in a huge way. The fires in Maui, the Northwest Territories (Canada), BC (Canada), Alberta (Canada) are prime examples of this …. 

For every forest that’s lost, we lose the ability to protect the earth from uncaptured Carbon Dioxide. We lose the ability to cool ourselves, to breathe in oxygen, to protect our wildlife. This planet is starting to feel quite dystopian.  And no one can tell me we don’t need oxygen. 

It’s scary that the world cares more for people in the Ukraine than it ever will for the people of Palestine and Yemen, both of which are suffering from drought, famine, extreme hardship and in Palestine, from the manipulatively imposed, genocidal Israeli apartheid.  What is it that makes it so easy to turn away from people who may not look like you? 

Does Rwanda ring any bells?  Congo? Uganda? Afghanistan?  70% of the world’s population does not live in the “Western World.”  Nor do they look like the presupposed Caucasian “norm.”  Canada and the United States only account for .48% and 4.3%* (respectively) the world’s population.  Given that we’re eight billion and counting, that’s not a huge amount.

Every day in Palestine, people have to ask the Israelis for permission to pray, to get water, to go to school, work or university. Would you tolerate that?  Did you know that Palestinians are under water restrictions just because the Israelis feel they own the land?  Would you tolerate that?  Some of you won’t even tolerate your neighbours building fences near your property, let alone having them usurp your land, water and food supplies. Every day that you turn a blind eye is another day that a Palestinian person is killed, imprisoned, prohibited from prayer or forced to choose between going grocery shopping and protecting his/her home.

You think Palestine doesn’t matter.  It does.  It’s one of the longest, most continually inhabited places on the planet.  And if you think “well, the Palestinians always retaliate,” you would be right. And you would be wrong. 

We’re talking about young men, with sticks and rocks perpetually facing tanks, rifles, military grade weapons, grenades, and soldiers with killer instinct training, brandishing weapons that could tear a person apart in mere seconds. Young men who are being systematically, perpetually killed off so that they cannot produce offspring. You call this a fair fight?  Really?  You cannot fault the Palestinians simply because they were born where they were born. And you cannot call this a “fight.” It’s systemic. It’s genocidal; the cultural erasure of one nation by another. Just ask the Uighurs of China if they’re in a fair fight.

China has just outlawed “God,” and is in the process of rewriting the Torah, the Bible and the Qu’ran because it wants the president to be worshipped and all loyalty to its own state. it literally wants to “rewrite history.” Who gave them the authority to determine what’s legit and what isn’t? And what will happen to the people, many of whom are Christian, Muslim, Catholic, Buddhist and Daoist? Are they to stop believing just because their president wants them to?

You know, when you mess with things that are beyond your control or comprehension, consequences abound.

Which brings me to my next scary point; consumerism. People cannot help where they were born. And most live in countries which are being harmed by the overconsumption, degradation and harm caused by developed countries, who, quite frankly, ought to know better.  The mass consumerism that feeds our seemingly insatiable desire for more, faster, better, is going to tear this fragile planetary ecosystem apart. 

These fires are not a result of a cool planet.  The droughts affecting lands once fertile are not a result of a cool planet. The mass scale flooding, viruses spreading like they’re perfume, and boiling summer temperatures are not results of a cool planet.  These result from neglect on a humungous scale; an industrial scale. Humans are destroying the planet faster than we can heal her.

So, let me ask you this: when every tree has burned and there are no more to grow, what then will you build? What will be left to rewrite?