Catastrophe

Kompas

In this file photograph taken on February 3, 2020, women collect water from a hand water pump on the outskirts of Jalalabad. - Hunger, drought and disease will afflict tens of millions more people within decades, according to a draft UN assessment that lays bare the dire human health consequences of a warming planet. After a pandemic year that saw the world turned on its head, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change\'s forthcoming report offers a distressing vision of the decades to come: malnutrition, water insecurity, pestilence. Policy choices made now can reduce these health consequences, but many are simply unavoidable in the short term, the report said. It also warns of the cascading impacts that simultaneous crop failures, falling nutritional value of basic food stuffs, and soaring price inflation are likely to have on some of the world\'s most vulnerable people.

Turmoil for humans! This is the latest announcement by scientists regarding the climate crisis that is happening. The report, made by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), is a science-based document that comprehensively describes the environmental emergency.

This research was done by processing 14,000 scientific papers from empirical studies carried out over the last three years. The project involved the cooperation of 234 scientists from 65 countries. The gist of the report is scientific proof that human actions have had an impact on the Earth, which is increasingly heating.

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The increase in the temperature of the Earth will lead to calamity for humans. Scientists have predicted that disaster can occur if the temperature continues to increase. Extreme weather can cause floods, as well as heat waves and droughts throughout the world. The IPCC report disclosed the dark facts of the impact of human actions, CO2 concentration, rising sea levels, the disappearance of the ice sheet in the Arctic and also melting glaciers, as well as the increased acidity of sea water. Environmental degradation due to this warming is occurring quickly, the temperature of the Earth\'s surface was found to have increased 1.09 degrees Celsius in the past ten years.

The IPCC report even confirmed that the 2015 to 2020 period was the hottest since 1850. If no mitigation is carried out to reduce carbon emissions on a large scale, within the next 20 years the temperature of the Earth will increase more than 1.5 degrees Celsius.

The publication of this climate study seems worrying because we see climate disasters occurring throughout the world. Major floods in Germany and Belgium, then forest fires in Greece are mentioned as the worst such disasters for the past 30 years, likewise fires in Turkey, Russia, Italy and the United States.

Getty Images/Brook Mitchell

Families take refuge from the heat at Darling Harbour on January 8, 2018 in Sydney, Australia. Sydney was the hottest place on earth yesterday, with temperatures reaching 47.3C in some suburbs, a recording not seen since 1939. Temperatures in western Sydney are expected to remain above 40C today, before a cool change rolls through on Tuesday.

Humans need to look within themselves. Even the frigid region of Siberia has suffered from a heat wave that caused a forest fire engulfing an area of 3.4 million hectares. Humans have created hell on Earth. Behind the rows of scientific words and piles of charts and diagrams, this report is actually a trumpet, indicating the disappearance of an ancient balance. This loss should be a cause for grief. The destruction of natural supports means the devastation of biodiversity.

The study shows that the changes that occur due to greenhouse gas emissions cannot be recovered for centuries, perhaps up to a millennium in the future. More than that, human activity has a formidable impact on the climate system causing the Earth\'s energy imbalance.

The balance point enables abundant life with networks and diversity.

I contemplate the meaning of the Earth\'s energy, namely the connection between the Earth and the Sun, concerning the energy captured and released. How beautiful the harmonization is. The balance point enables abundant life with networks and diversity.

The disruption of the Earth\'s energy, in my mind, means pain to the bodily unity of the Earth. The body of the Earth are the oceans, rivers, mountains, forests, valleys and savannahs, which are alive with various species of flora and fauna. The energy is a combination of a variety of creatures. However, the harmony is threatened with disappearance, as one by one species head toward extinction.

A tiger, the ruler of the jungle, walked weakly, staggering. When it was about to die, the animal approached the residential settlement with a heavy breath. Residents in Padang Gelugur, Pasaman, West Sumatra, were suddenly boisterous. They felt sorry for the sick tiger, and even though it was given help, the tiger finally died.

Local residents believe tigers are not ordinary creatures. They are considered magical creatures that safeguard the world. That was why the dead tiger was wrapped in a cloth, as if for a funeral, then buried and prayed for like a human.

I still remember a research period in Leiden, the Netherlands. One afternoon, while sipping a cup of mint tea, I talked with Professor Peter Boomgaard. We talked about tigers and how important their existence was as the apex predator in the ecosystem. Professor Boomgaard is an expert in the history of the environment and his work, the Frontiers of Fear, Tigers and People in the Malay World, 1600-1950, is a pioneer study on the environment and tigers in Southeast Asia.

He argued that word history did not mean human history but knowledge about the entire nexus of life on Earth.

In the book, he asked whether animals, or in this case tigers, had history. He argued that word history did not mean human history but knowledge about the entire nexus of life on Earth.

It is a misunderstanding if human history is considered something separate and major compared to natural history or the history of flora and fauna. Isn\'t human life arranged by the surrounding nature? Our ancestors in the past saved history about nature using their bodies. They danced to imitate animal movements while emulating the characteristics of these creatures, such as tigers, birds, monkeys, horses and various other forms of dance.

KOMPAS/ANGGER PUTRANTO

The Barong Ider Bumi entourage toured the village accompanied by Covid 19 task force officers in Kemiren Village, Glagah District, Banyuwangi, Monday (25/5/2020).

Legendary dancer Hurriah Adam wrote about the closeness of Minang\'s culture with amazement for nature, "Observation of nature gives birth to dances."

One of his pieces is a Barabah dance that expresses the motions of freedom of a pair of birds. In addition, in Sumatra, there is also a martial arts discipline inspired by the magic power of tigers.

I listened to a story told by Esha Tegar Putra, a poet from West Sumatra, about his village in Saniangbangka, Solok. He spoke of Inyiak Balang, a call for a mysterious tiger that was very respected. The village has a tradition of Rasaki Harimau or the sustenance of tigers, where they share the results of hunting as a symbol of thanks and sign of mutual respect in their shared living space.

Tiger myths in this context can be seen as an archetype, a basic picture that is hidden in our collective mentality and that lives through various folklore traditions and ritualistic dances. The image of nature also fills the niche of human cosmogonics. Despite being imagined mythological creatures, such as Barong, Garuda and dragons, these figures are amalgamates of the beauty of the world of animals.

Fire will destroy the world, according to the story, followed by rain for hundreds of years that submerges the world.

Unfortunately, the habitat for these species is being increasingly undermined. Their presence has become rare, fragile and vague. The history of their lives is destroyed in fire caused by humans. I remember the story in Visnu Purana, which talks about the arrival of the times when Dharma has been forgotten and the world is controlled by wickedness. Fire will destroy the world, according to the story, followed by rain for hundreds of years that submerges the world.

This apocalyptic modality makes my mind anxious. Then, is there a dance ritual to face the catastrophes that will happen?

KOMPAS/ICHWAN SUSANTO

Saras Dewi

SARAS DEWI, Philosophy Lecturer at the University of Indonesia

(This article was translated by Hyginus Hardoyo).