Changing Climes

To amend an old phrase, the vagaries of today’s environment, like death and taxes, are things that we cannot avoid. On the most obvious level for us urban dwellers, it’s hot and humid when it should be raining; and yet there are downpours when once upon a time the seasons dictated it should be dry. It’s confusing times for all of us, wherever we make our home.

The hopes for Copenhagen in December, as Stevie Emilia writes in the Said & Done, were not realized amid the competing and often exclusive interests which overshadowed the main aims of the gathering. But the forecast is not all dark and gloomy, as this environmentally focused edition shows. The green movement and awareness of global warming are growing, despite inevitable attempts by some interests to hoodwink us into believing they are changing their destructive ways, with M. Taufiqurrahman explores the issue of greenwashing.

There are the heroes among us who are fighting to help Mother Nature, such as Pak Suriansyah, the lone holdout as oil palm plantations swallow up the land around him, and the farmers who are adopting organic farming methods. There is still hope, if only we also are ready to plant the seeds of change in our own lives through less wasteful, more environmentally friendly living.

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