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EYAKUZE: The end is nigh; tree huggers, preppers agree

Thursday September 05 2019
farm

Farmers cultivate maize on a farm in Kakamega, western Kenya. Climate change is already putting huge stress on Africa’s food production systems. PHOTO | ISAAC WALE

By ELSIE EYAKUZE

If we leave out the portion of humanity that doesn’t know or doesn’t believe or doesn’t care that climate change is real, we tend to fall into two camps.

People who have been preparing for some version of the end of civilisation as we know it, and the majority of us who are optimistic that things will somehow be alright.

I blame the optimism on formal schooling, because we are taught from childhood not to question the inevitable arc of human history towards constant achievement and “development.”

For the first time in a while, there is good cause for doubt about that. Somehow those doomsday preppers, who have been the butt of jokes, don’t seem that crazy anymore.

If we just take their focus on survival in a post-apocalyptic world, maybe there is inspiration to be had there.

I think, for example, of the countless people who are trying to migrate across the world looking for better opportunities because things are falling apart at home.

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It is not just the endless wars anymore, it is tangible climate change, which is challenging agrarian societies’ survival, and it is unemployment, and it is the toughness of an urban life and trying to survive in the monetised world.

So people who don’t necessarily have the survival skills to take the risks of travelling illegally do so anyway, and we are swamped with stories of boats full of hopefuls braving dangerous seas and ironically often also facing water shortages, diseases and lack of help from those with the power to do so.

A prepper in those circumstances is probably the one guy who knows how to catch a shark with his bare hands and ride it to shore while keeping his supply of fresh water topped up with nothing but a used plastic container and a piece of string.

Meanwhile, we organic liberals will send thoughts, prayers, food, safe passage, a couch to crash on and an online fundraising platform, but we cannot do much about the politics that leads to these circumstances in the first place. Except protest peacefully. Maybe.

I want to say: It isn’t all grim.

Studies are showing all the great ways in which nature is already adapting to human impact, like the cool bacteria and fungi that can now digest plastics and other manmade waste.

But, as always, just because Mother Nature is adapting doesn’t mean she is doing it to keep us humans around.

And those on the crunchy grainy side who are starting to panic are adopting doomsday preparation language and techniques and beliefs.

The strong line that separated “us” from “them” is disappearing on the more extreme sides of both arguments.

This climate change issue is confusing on how to approach it, but when both sides of an argument start claiming the end is nigh, maybe it is okay to panic.

Elsie Eyakuze is a consultant and blogger for The Mikocheni Report. E-mail: [email protected]

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