Addio pomodori: what will we lose in the climate crisis?

“I have been writing for quite some time about disappearing islands, the dying coral reefs, the melting ice, the thinned-out tuna, plastic in the Mariana Trench and in the stomachs of albatrosses, as well as whales beaching to die, crushed under their own bodyweight. My mind is set on one idea; my friends can be certain that at some point every conversation will turn into a debate on the catastrophe. I feel that something frightening is happening, that we can stop it, and that we are not doing enough. When I am in a darker mood, I figure that we will all die anyway, no matter how many straws I refuse with my drinks, or if I say for the hundredth time: “No bag for me, please”. This is not enough. Just as the global school strikes are not enough, or Greta Thunberg’s charisma, or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s struggle for the Green New Deal. The Extinction Rebellion, the Birth Strikers, or the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement – all of that is not enough. Even more, science reports and the Paris Accords will not suffice either. On a bad day, I am convinced that we have condemned ourselves to extinction”.

This article is nominated for European Press Prize 2020 in “The Opinion” category. In this piece I describe feelings of anxiety and depression that climate crisis evokes in me. I’m focusing on explaining immediacy of climate changes and their global effect on every – even the tiniest – aspects of our lives. I describe how we became detached from nature, and from ourselves. Maybe the crisis is a chance to change that? And to build more resilient society that is based on cooperation and connection.

You can read full article here. It was translated by Mark Ordon and Grzegorz Drymer.

Polish version of this article was written for Pismo. Magazyn Opinii.