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ighting climate change must be our top priority but we have not yet heard any of our presidential candidates or political parties contesting the April elections table the issue as their main agenda.

It seems the global concerns and commitments arising in United Nations climate talks and summits, including the most recent in Katowice, Poland, fall on the deaf ears of the electoral candidates.

We have halfheartedly tackled climate change, regardless of the widespread environmental degradation.

Such a response is the most dangerous of all. It is like discovering that we have terminal cancer but delaying medical treatment because we are too preoccupied by our own business. We will leave a totally worthless trashy planet as a legacy. This is one of the many layers of injustice wrapped tightly around the problem of climate change.

Injustice number one of climate change is that it hits the poorest first and hardest.

How many in our country have died from worsening floods? We have also seen drought, storms, cyclones and diseases that global warming and climate change are unleashing.

Nearly all the disaster victims — and those at risk the most — are poor people in either urban or rural areas.

Injustice number two is the fact that global warming is a result of the burning of fossil fuels by not only industrialized nations but also industries within the country, with the richest being the most culpable planet-cookers.

The poorest are powerless to stop it. It is certainly fair that those profiting from industrial sectors bear a moral responsibility for the adverse impacts they are causing. Polluters should pay.

In everything and every way there is an always blessing Lord that will never end.

On the other hand, man refusing blessings is also a part of history that has no end.

So, our beautiful world has been spoiled and we see global warming and climate change that mirror the curse, the anti-blessing. In mainstream global development, the process of killing the earth and farmers is continuing while the era of modern science and technology is culminating.

The farmers’ seeds have been wiped out and industrial seeds are being forced on the farmers during the green revolution, of which state institutions such as the New Order’s Bimas (community guidance) and Inmas (community information) became the instruments.

In the following gene revolution, costly chemical fertilizers and other agrochemicals continue to degrade the soil, poisoning food and human life.

The microorganism as a nitrogen fixing bacteria will be out of a job if one applies chemical fertilizers, and they will be fading away.

So one destroys the soil’s capacity to fix its own nitrogen and instead of getting it for free has to pay for it. Nitrogen is still free in the atmosphere instead of being fixed biologically by the microorganism. And together with uncontrolled CO2 emissions it is destroying the ozone layer.

The rapid destruction of our forests is contributing much to carbon emissions by the removal of one of the natural reservoirs that would otherwise absorb excess CO2.

The role of this planetary green belt in maintaining the regional — and even global — climate can hardly be overestimated.

Deforestation is currently estimated to be 10 times the rate of reforestation. The worst ecological disaster of our time is forest destruction by fires that have swept across Sumatra and Kalimantan. The risk of such catastrophic fires increases as deforestation reduces rainfall in nearby areas. As the forests disappear the pace of soil erosion accelerates.

Oil is the most popular fuel at present but it is a finite resource. Given the complications of the energy question, the best solution is likely to include a combination of energy efficiency improvement, the expansion of renewable energy and lower demand by modifying human behavior.

We have already lost a large amount of our forests and our farming land has become barren or converted. We don’t reject modern science and technology, but those that destroy our environment.

Environmental degradation is against morality, and preserving the environment is always a moral duty.

All in all as we are one nation, one country, one language — we don’t want to perish together. Actions involving the grassroots and elites are urgent, but fail to materialize because of a lack of political will. Politics can undermine the knowledge, strategies and technologies to solve the grave environmental problems.

Surely Indonesia does not want a government that drags its feet in tackling such fundamental issues. When it comes to the destruction of the ozone layer, deforestation, land degradation through conventional unsustainable farming systems, air and water pollution, the government should be at the forefront to handle them. That is what we should vote for!
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The writer, a Catholic priest, is the moderator of the World Food Day of Farmers’ and Fishermen’s Movement of Indonesia.