Hey friends!👋
It’s been a long 8 month hiatus — but I’m pleased to announce that in between now and my last update, I (finally) found work in the climate space. I’m now at 350, working on digital strategy. I like it so far. It’s fully remote but the remoteness comes with a multicultural team🌏.
In the 4 weeks I’ve been here I’ve met people from Japan, Colombia, Spain, Ghana, and Germany. There are many others I haven’t met yet, but it feels like digital camaraderie in our virtual workspace. We’re all fighting for the same cause, so while I’m the only one based in Singapore, it’s nice to add to their pool of lived experiences and perspectives.
Here’s a perspective I have to offer: I happen to be a part of a population that isn’t experiencing the full force of climate change. And for all intents and purposes, it’s a blessing. But it’s also frustrating. My general impression here: no one’s really concerned. Business goes on as usual, plastic is rampant, and now that borders are open, everyone’s flying again.
The 6 million of us here effectively live in a safe bubble. Relatively safe, of course. If the science is true and we do nothing about it, some day that bubble will pop. Also, don’t get me wrong. It is hot. Very hot. But it’s been hot for as long as I can remember, and anyone who has lived here long enough knows you eventually acclimate to the heat.
Is it actually hotter? Maybe, I couldn’t say for certain — Jared Diamond calls this landscape amnesia, but I’m sure we haven’t had any heatwaves like the ones in London or Pakistan. Even in the peak of scorching summer months, I don’t recall the government encouraging us to 'carry water at all times'. It begs the question: how severe would weather conditions have to be for the Singapore government to issue a PSA like that?
The truth is I’m not sure how we will confront despair when things take a turn for the worst. When food security is threatened; when water dwindles; and when air becomes hazy, will we have the resilience to re-calibrate our attitudes towards sustainable systems? I have my doubts. I think it’s more likely our animalistic sense of self-preservation will kick in. We’re creatures of comfort. The choice to be comfortable or to sacrifice is a large ask — regrettably, I think we’ll fight tooth and bone to stay comfortable.
Still, there is an imperative for those in the climate space to believe it can be done — ✨we have to stay hopeful✨. Those convinced of this crisis need to work at transforming beliefs and attitudes — arguably the hardest part of the job. It’s easy to despair. I know I have.
So step 1: how does one get from from despair to bold-eyed sacrifice? The 24th U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón captures this transition beautifully in her poem, The Leash.
After the birthing of bombs of forks and fear
the frantic automatic weapons unleashed,
the spray of bullets into a crowd holding hands,
that brute sky opening in a slate metal maw
that swallows only the unsayable in each of us, what’s
left? Even the hidden nowhere river is poisoned
orange and acidic by a coal mine. How can
you not fear humanity, want to lick the creek
bottom dry, to suck the deadly water up into
your own lungs, like venom? Reader, I want to
say: Don’t die. Even when silvery fish after fish
comes back belly up, and the country plummets
into a crepitating crater of hatred, isn’t there still
something singing? The truth is: I don’t know.
But sometimes, I swear I hear it, the wound closing
like a rusted-over garage door, and I can still move
my living limbs into the world without too much
pain, can still marvel at how the dog runs straight
toward the pickup trucks break-necking down
the road, because she thinks she loves them,
because she’s sure, without a doubt, that the loud
roaring things will love her back, her soft small self
alive with desire to share her goddamn enthusiasm,
until I yank the leash back to save her because
I want her to survive forever. Don’t die, I say,
and we decide to walk for a bit longer, starlings
high and fevered above us, winter coming to lay
her cold corpse down upon this little plot of earth.
Perhaps we are always hurtling our body towards
the thing that will obliterate us, begging for love
from the speeding passage of time, and so maybe,
like the dog obedient at my heels, we can walk together
peacefully, at least until the next truck comes.
I think this will be a journey and I’m thankful to have started. You can’t sacrifice if you don’t know what’s worth fighting for. I’m starting to see how it’s better to move from simply thinking about the world, to feeling its pulse.
From feeling it, to flowing within.
I’m a sucker for the theme of sacrifice.
Love❤️,
Daniel