Modern Moments of Anxiety

After enduring centuries of rapid extraction, unsustainable living methods, and climate-altering systems of production, consumption, and waste - our planet is reacting back with force. We’ve created a world that no longer wishes us to exist in it. Within the last few decades, the planet has shifted with oscillating patterns of abnormal and extreme weather conditions; overall global environmental health has depleted. Planet Earth is taking its ownership in its final attempts of ensuring longevity.

We as the human race, have majorly screwed up!

How much longer can we continue existing on this planet before it reclaims itself and us in the process? What will we see at that moment before the shores consume us? Before the heat scorches us? Before massive hurricanes and tornadoes rip apart our homes? What will it feel like when we are all left alone and stranded?

Who and what will survive? And more importantly, will anyone get to see the moment after?

We need a raw and sincere outlook into our lives within a few years and decades into the future as we face the consequences of our actions. Climate-induced disasters are ever more frequent, breaking records across the board and they’re only going to get worse as the years go by without substantial changes.

Look around at the beautiful little world that we’ve fabricated and realize that our decision-makers have failed us, treating climate change-induced disasters as an issue for our future selves. Well, sorry to break it to you, but there will not be a future self to deal with these issues, because it’s at our front doorstep; your doormat just got washed away in the heavy flash flood this morning. Perpetual and repetitive habits of ignorance have forced us into these conditions, r i d d l e d w i t h a n x i e t y.

Answer this truthfully, do we need all that we have? Why do we consume so much, yet hold so little to our name? Being wasteful is not a good look on you. Why is your online shopping cart filled with fast fashion pieces that ultimately use cheap exported labor in factories and pollute marginalized communities? Excessive emission of greenhouse gases and pollutants has had far-reaching effects, just check the smog conditions in Los Angeles and Beijing. You don’t need that 100th bottle of dry shampoo; put it down.

As the onset of higher global temperatures, many regions will encounter extensive monsoon rains and millions will endure a world rampant with mosquito-borne diseases, such as Malaria and Dengue. Before you start applying that useless bug spray, just know that it’s only going to get worse. Other regions will experience prolonged dry seasons, forcing millions to leave, accounting for climate-induced migration. What a paradox! To live in a world that’s drowning in humidity and floods while others are in droughts, and yet both lack safe drinking water due to the ever-increasing issue of depleting water reservoirs and salinization of fresh bodies of water. In short, enjoy your Evian water bottle while you can.

Do we love our AC units as much as we love those summer power outages and failing electrical circuits? If our indoor conditions aren’t sufficiently comfortable, how will we thrive in a world that requires us to check toxicity levels in the air before exiting our homes? What will you do when your eyes begin to tear up when urban heat zones and smog combine to create engineered biohazards in record summer temperatures? Darling, pick yourself up! You’re crying all over the splendid paprika-colored carpet.

Weather extremes will be extensive and yet not exclusive.

This is not a hyperbole, this is an understatement!

There is an underlying level of restlessness creeping in. Wake up! The doom of our planet is quickly approaching, seemingly arriving before your UberEats food order!

Before we begin to panic and grab every roll of toilet paper off the shelves, we need to question our capitalistic modern world and set of values. What will be the moment that finally shakes us to the core, perhaps before we enter into a world ravaged by unpredictable weather conditions, viruses, and food and water shortages?

What are we going to do? The polar caps are melting, droughts are intensifying, forests are being cleared, water resources are depleting, floods are washing away everything, and yet here we are, worried about line weights as we wait at the plotter for our fanciful drawings that will ultimately be tossed away after review.

Again, ask yourself, who and what will survive? Is there going to be a moment after?