Bhola is a small island district in the south of Bangladesh situated softly on the edge of Bay of Bengal and home to nearly two million people. Few years ago on Al Jazeera, a documentary on climate change was aired which was titled, “Bhola: Ground Zero of Climate Change.” The basic message was that the island might not survive when sea water will rise in height due to an increment in global temperature. While this will most certainly have severe human and economic consequences for the people of the island and for many families cohabiting in the lower delta regions, the documentary silenced and saddened me for personal reasons. And that is, if Bhola does erode away then I will no longer be able to visit my family cemetery where I have laid my father to rest. It also means that their grandchildren will not be able to offer prayers by visiting the remains of their ancestors.
The thought that I have mentioned above is painful, but it is clear to me that these emotions hardly shape global reactions on the issue of climate change. The concerns that are largely debated among the movers and shakers of “climate change agenda” are more worried about how the economy will cope with prescribed actions regarding emission cuts, the role of U.S. and China, and the extent that we can efficiently move towards renewable energy for fueling our economic aspirations. Yet, human emotions and misery that any significant rise in global temperature might trigger through catastrophic environmental outcomes receive less than appropriate weight when evaluations are undertaken concerning the climate change agenda. Funny enough, until recently some entities even displayed considerable doubt concerning whether human society was having any impact at all on the climate, even though scientists have repeatedly brought to attention substantial anomalies in the North Pole for decades.
Nonetheless, this narrative is not about pinpointing what climate change agenda is missing or the actions that are needed to resolve the most dangerous challenge that human kind collectively faces in the 21st century. Rather, it is about bringing to sight an essential insight that global warming is providing us – whether we chose to see it or not as an intelligent race. But, before we delve into such inquiry, it is worth discussing an unique issue from the history of Japan during its seclusion period of the 17th and 18th century.
More precisely, between 1630 and 1854, Japan essentially practiced a “closed country” doctrine which meant no foreign trade with any European traders. The third shogun of the Tokugawa dynasty Tokugawa Iemitsu was so skeptical of the intentions of the European traders and the corruption that can occur within Japanese traditions through interactions with foreign culture and religion, he practically restricted all foreign interactions by putting in place Sakoku Edict of 1635. This law restricted every Japanese traders from traveling to foreign countries and at one point they were even restricted from reading foreign books. Any violation of this law was punishable by death. Yet, even under such extremely harsh isolated mindset, Japan had to allow Dutch and Chinese traders to visit rarely through which it maintained its contact with the unknown world outside its geographic contours. It was like a thin thread that tied an isolated entity with the unknown civilizations of the West.
The rationale for discussing this unique piece of history from ancient Japan is to argue that even if each respective nation at present choose to seclude themselves under some hypothetical arrangements with large walls and strict laws – where each nation emerges as a pariah state – the thin thread that ties all humanity together is the imminent threat of climate change. That is, whether we choose to accept it or not, global warming is an externality that we all contribute to, and even if we are completely self-sufficient and require no-foreign assistance or interaction, the unimaginable consequences it can trigger demands our collective action. In essence, it is like a thread that collectively ties our future together and reminds us that no nation can ignore its dependence on others—in the same manner the Japanese had to maintain some foreign contact despite being almost secluded from the rest of the world.
Thus, what global warming and the imminent dangerous it pose is really telling us is that 21st century demands the creation of a global society where petty nationalism and narrow economic interests of few cannot side line the grave ecological concerns of our time. If politics in 1970s was about surviving the Cold War, and 1990s was about triggering the third wave of democracy, and post-9/11 was about winning the war on terror, then the movers and shakers of world politics must realize that the current decade should gear all resources and attention to mitigate the threats that climate change inherently possess. If we choose to ignore it, nonetheless, then we will do it at our own peril. But, what is more upsetting is that the people of Bhola or any region equally vulnerable to the immediate catastrophic outcomes of global warming will remain voiceless during the entire spectacle.
