Climate Change and the Forgotten People

I remember when I went to my hometown in Dompu Regency, West Nusa Tenggara Province, Indonesia, few months ago. My family owns several cornfields, and in that gloomy day, I accompanied my father to visit our one-hectare cornfield. Our car went through a pebble road with tempting sceneries alongside us, till finally my father turned left the car into a small-tarnished road. Some herdsmen with tied-cows behind sometimes passed the road, made our quiet journey not too lonely.

When we arrived, I left the car and talked with the farmer. He shared me some information, included his worrying about current weather. He explained to me that recently it is hard to predict the daily weather as it was not as straight as before. It was August and the season should have been dry. Otherwise, at that time, the rain was still falling down and even could not be predicted.

This situation was complicating the farmers, as corn needs dry soil and no water during its early stage of the plantation. Random rain like that could undermine the seeds. Furthermore, he told me that in this month he has planted the seeds in two times because the first one was completely failed due to the unpredicted rain.

Another experience when I conducted research in Aceh Province, Indonesia. I stayed in a village where the majority of people depended their life on the sea. Many villagers worked as octopus hunter, and as the hunter, they had to dive in the deep of the sea to shoot the octopus. However, because of the unpredicted weather, they could not do their activity regularly because when it was rain, the water in seabed would become turbid and obstructed the hunter’s view.

Back to my experience in my hometown, it was ok actually for my family if we forcibly had a crop failure -even though we would still lose the production cost- as we do not rely on our major income from the fields. But how about the farmer of our field who hangs out his family life on the profit-sharing? His worried face even got tighter as the dark clouds slowly came closer from the west. Moreover, how about the village in remote Aceh whose the residents totally depended their economic life on the weather and sea?

In the urban society perspective, sometimes we do not put a high attention on climate change issues. As a society who is accustomed to living in the industrialization era and modernity, we take climate change as the consequence of our massive industrialization. If the weather gets hotter, just push the small button on our air-conditioner remote and problem solved. The rain will not completely affect our capitalism activities except just small traffic jams at some points of the street.

I was also thinking like above before I met the ironic realities in my hometown and poor village in Aceh. As a young middle class in the greater Jakarta area, I tended to just think about my personal interest. I did not put damn care about climate change as we build up a large-scale technology ahead. I forgot the feel of being lagged behind and the consequence of our greedy industrialization to those farmers and octopus hunters. They are the forgotten people whose harmony life with nature get harmed by our far-away industrial activities.

It is ironic when we talk about massive development and gigantic industrialization while sacrificing the life of some of the poor people. One of the 2030 agenda for sustainable development is no one left behind, and how about those farmers and hunters? The country runs fast to achieve its development goals while leaves some lives behind. Then for whom and for what the development itself?

Climate change and forgotten people, this phenomenon should not happen in this modernity era, the era where the human is being proud of creating tremendous technologies. How to address this consequence then?

That is the importance of the contextuality of technology itself. If we think about climate change as the consequence of industrialization and forgotten people phenomenon, seems like there is a missing link between them, while actually they can be connected. The growth of technology and massive industrialization should not undermine the life of poor people or people who have harmony live with nature. Otherwise, it should easier their daily life and economic activities. To create a contextual development with not only a quantitative perspective and the lust to chase economic growth is a must. Qualitative perspective, with a long projection ahead and clear vision to every element of the development, must be included in the term of future sustainable development.

Technology, industrialization, and every aspect of development should lift the life’s capacity of the people instead of destroying their hope, thus the climate change and forgotten people phenomenon will not exist. The ecological perspective in this writing is probably utopia and imaginary as we live in the cruel-banal world, but as I stand in the words of John Lennon in his magnificent song, “you may say I am a dreamer, but I am not the only one”, I still keep my faith.