For God's sake, I did hope 2020 will be my year before seeing just two days into 2020 and "World War III" became trending on Twitter. LMAO. (Laughing and crying at the same time)
I am pretty sure we all expect that 2020 will be our year since many people seemed to have a bunch of problems in 2019. Then, we realized that 2019 wasn't that bad at all after seeing what has happened in early 2020. Nowadays we will be faced with climate change and (maybe) world war III (I don't hope it will happen!).
I think there are many Indonesians who don't put more concern for the disasters caused by climate change. Even though Jakarta and other cities in West Java were flooded right on the new year's day. The government should take real action to prevent further disasters and as Indonesian, we should also obey the future regulation that will be set by the government.
I looked it up deeply about the flash flood in Jakarta and found that many articles written by foreign media had cited Jakarta as the fastest-sinking city in the world. A foreign media published an article about 5 major cities that are sinking rapidly into the sea. Do you know what city in number one is? Jakarta. Correct! You have already guessed it. Jakarta is sinking 10 inches per year! Can you imagine that?
London, the second city, is sinking only at number 0,7 inches per year. What a huge gap! I think it is because Indonesians don't aware of this problem (our literation rate is also very low), so we have kept digging an abundance of private wells (which cause land subsidence). Moreover, the city's infrastructure as Jakarta does not have a reliable network of piped-in water.
I wonder if it is the reason behind the move of our capital city from Jakarta (on the island of Java) to Borneo (on Kalimantan island)?
I am very worried because Kalimantan is still a pristine natural landscape with an abundance of fascinating wildlife. The move of the capital city will certainly affect all of them. I can't imagine there will be deforestation, high air pollution, etc like what has happened in Jakarta. Of course, I do hope the "smart city" that the government is aiming for could be realized.
"The move will cost an estimated 466 trillion rupiah (32.9 dollars) and will be one of the biggest infrastructure projects the government has ever undertaken." (Yvette Tan and Callistasia Wijaya. 2019. "Will Indonesia's New Capital just Move The Problem to The Jungle?". bbc.com)
It surely costs a lot! I am not an expert in this field, so I can't comment on it much. The decision to move the capital city to Borneo has been through years of speculation and debate among the experts. Since the President has already decided, it must be the best way. Let's trust him.
It is said that Jakarta could be entirely submerged by 2050 and almost half of North Jakarta is already below the sea level. It's not a piece of good news, indeed. However, I hope we figure a solution out to prevent it.
In my opinion, the first thing we can do to save this Jakarta (and this planet as well) is to stop using plastics in our daily lives. For sure, it is not an easy thing to do since we use plastics in many aspects of our modern lives. It costs less money in production and affordable for us, Indonesians (many Indonesians are categorized as low-middle class). Nevertheless, we HAVE TO find alternatives for plastics as soon as possible.
Despite using plastic straws, we can start using glass or stainless steel straws. According to the Strawless Ocean in the US, plastic straws are too lightweight for recycling sorters and drop through sorting screens and end up in landfills. (Barnes, Danielle. 2020. "5 Reasons You Should Stop Using Plastic Straws". Goodhousekeeping.co.za).
Please note that plastics can remain in the environment for over 2000 years! It is said that in 2050, there may be more plastic in the ocean than fish. I am sure we don't want it to happen.
And then, we should also try to go everywhere on foot, by bus, or by train. We should use public transportations instead of our private vehicles. It will exactly reduce air pollution.
At least, despite blaming everything to our government, we should know that we also contribute to what happened in Jakarta and its surrounding cities. Let ask some questions to ourselves: Have we eliminated plastics usage from our daily lives? Didn't we throw garbage into the river? and so on.
Moving on from Jakarta, there are also bushfires in Australia that have been burning the forest for about six months! But, thank God at least the rains came down yesterday even though it wasn't enough to put the bushfires out (instead, the torrential rainfall came down in Jakarta and caused flood). I hope the heavy rain moves to Australia. LOL.
Australians, please stay safe and sound!
Sadly, there is nothing I can do for them.
Oh no, honestly ... there are some things we can do for both Australians and Jakartans (?). We can donate some of our money. You can check this link out:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/01/07/australia-fires-how-to-help-donate-victims-animals/2832145001/
https://kitabisa.com/campaign/untukkorbanbanjir
Even if it is just a small amount of donations, it will surely help them in need. We are living in the same world, facing the same problems caused by climate change.
I want to put some lyrics of my favorite song by Maher Zain. I think it is related to what I wrote here:
Now we share the same bright sun
The same round moon
Why don't we share the same love
Tell me why not
Life is shorter than most have thought
Hold my hand
There are many ways to do it right
Hold my hand
Turn around and see what we have left behind
Hold my hand, my friend,
We can save the good spirit of me and you
For another chance
And let's pray for a beautiful world
A beautiful world I share with you
No matter how far I might be
I'm always gonna be your neighbor
There's only one small planet where to be
So I'm always gonna be your neighbor
We cannot hide, we can't deny
That we're always gonna be neighbors
You're neighbor, my neighbor
We're neighbors
By the way, because of those disasters, I took a break from Twitter for a few days. I just feel like my head is going to explode due to too much information. LMAO. I hope, Indonesians and other people in this world as well will become fully aware of climate change and the disasters which come along with it.
Image by Canva
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