SUNRISE OVER BROOKLYN: FROM THE HEART OF A GLOBAL PANDEMIC
Sunrise over Brooklyn during the heart of a global pandemic can be insomniatic. The quiet streets cut by sirens
accentuate the emergency state of a world on fire. I don't usually suffer from lack of sleep; I wonder if it's the premature
lives turned ghosts hovering just above my house, wishing for a witness, that have kept me awake. Or maybe it's my
own animal instinct, so acutely aware of the dance we have entered with extinction.
As humans, we make up just 0.01% of all life, but we have destroyed 83% of wild mammals and roughly half of all flora
on Earth (1). The extinction rate is up to 150-200 species per day (2). By the end of this year, roughly 67,000 species will
be forever gone. Mostly unnoticed. Life around us quietly disappears under the chaos of our human rumble. 2020: an
abrupt stop.
It was only a matter of time before our disturbed sleep forced us into the wake, turning our ears to the deafening
echo of their silent departure. A delayed reaction, like most things human.
Oh, how this house of cards came barreling down.
Us, on top, positioned to fall the farthest.
Our souls, chasing after us as we came crashing
into the great abyss of ever-after.
I wonder if our souls will look back from an undisclosed location, slightly shell-shocked from the impact of having lost
planet Earth on the 11th hour, falling the farthest because we knew. We knew what we had. We knew what we had to
give up, and we simply refused to do so.
Created from stardust and charged with witnessing the universe unfold, we were intricately woven and given the
tools of poetry & technology, wonder & intellect, math & philosophy, memory & ritual. We were given
compassion as a map. We were given love as a compass. And yet, we are so close to untethering ourselves from the
fabric of life itself. Could it be that greed and complacency might actually be the truth-tellers of who we are?
A cross, uppercut knockdown from the potential of our divinity?
The Earth is giving us one last chance. She is teaching us to be still, to listen, to care for the ones who care for us, to
protect our elders and each other. Most importantly, she is showing us that she can heal herself.
We are being offered an incredible opportunity to step away from a cascade of tipping points that could send multiple
Earth systems marching past the edge of no return (3). This virus has shown us that in the face of danger and death, as
a global community, we can - instantaneously - redirect our actions, expand our imagination, and make a way out of
inconceivable paths.
As the colors begin to change the morning sky, I can see our souls reaching down as we fall from the edge, offering to
pull us back into life like the air returning into smog-strangled cities. This is where the new story might begin. No longer
under the hypnotic note of convenience. As we move into the heart of the 6th mass extinction, what is required of us is
nothing short of transformation.
As we rise and fall to the cycling news of Covid-19, let us not forget the myriad of ways we, ourselves, have been
ensuring our extinction for decades. Three particularly egregious acts are the destruction of the Amazon Rainforest, the
agriculture industry, and the water crisis, exasperated by our addiction to sugar.
Over the last decade, land, the equivalent of 2,822 football fields of the Amazon, has been destroyed every day,
primarily for cattle and soy production (4). That's over 10 million football fields in 10 years. Extraction of natural resources
such as oil, lumber, and rubber also drive the devastation. Between 15% and 17% - a conservative estimate - of the
Amazon has been lost. If the amount of cleared forest land reaches 25%, there won't be enough trees cycling moisture
through the rainforest, causing it to dry out and degrade into a savanna (5). We are estimated to hit that tipping point as
early as 2021 (6).
Will we now open out eyes?
"Water is Life" rang internationally as Standing Rock protectors raised their prayers in the winter of 2017. The face-off
between water and oil spurred a global movement so vast that, even under Trump, the #NODAPL battle continues to
win in courts (7). Without water, we die within days. From Flint to Cape Town, the alarm rings loud and clear. 2.3 billion
people are living in water-scarce areas, and the numbers are rising by the minute, literally (8).
The water crisis is so insidious that even buying a soft drink can be a vote for impending death. Widely loved Coca-Cola
has been named the top plastic polluter globally while drying up countless aquifers. In 1999, within months of the
company setting up their plant in Plachimada, India, the local aquifers had dried up, and the soil was made toxic by
Coca-Cola by-products. The people rose, and the plant was successfully shut down, but still today, those living in
Plachimada have to walk over 5 miles to access drinking water (10). This is not an isolated case. The planet over,
beverage companies like Coca-Cola, Nestle, and Poland Springs are buying up, privatizing, and exhausting precious
water sources for economic benefit, leaving communities thirsty and in peril, and damaging the Earth's water system for
generations to come.
Will we now open our hearts?
Will we divest from the monsters that promise to eat us whole? I, not unlike you, have been guilty of participating in
comfort economies while the Earth begs us to breathe. Now it is we who are begging for breath. Will we plant gardens
and collaborate with the Earth? Will we demand just systems to ensure our participation? Will we participate in our own
rescue? Will we activate our imagination? In this Great Pause, will we teach our children to love this world back into
existence?
As darkness turns into day, I'm left wondering if the stars will eulogize us as the perfect reflection of the
cosmos, gone awry. Will they permanently ink the universal scrolls with stories of how our greed and complacency kept
us from ever joining the celestial destiny set before us? Or will they eulogize us as part of their cohort? Our stardust
bodies having realized on the 11th hour that indeed we could change everything, and we did.
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FOOTNOTES:
1. Humans just 0.01% of all life but have destroyed 83% of wild mammals – study
3. Tipping Points, Carbon Brief, Feb 10, 2020
4. The Amazon lost the equivalent of 8.4 million soccer fields this decade due to deforestation CNN, December 30, 2019
5. When will the Amazon hit a tipping point? Nature, February 25, 2020
6. Amazon rainforest 'close to irreversible tipping point' The Guardian, October 23, 2019
7. Standing Rock Sioux Tribe Wins a Victory in Dakota Access Pipeline Case New York Times, March 25, 2020
8. Water Scarcity Clock Frequently updated information.
9. Coca-Cola Named The World’s Most Polluting Brand in Plastic Waste Audit
10. People Power Shut Coke Down In Plachimada, But Wells Are Still Dry, HuffPost, Jan 22, 2019