The challenges we face today are unprecedented — climate change, religious conflict, inequality and injustice, overexposure to social media. The tsunami of cheap fulfillment of shallow desire will continue to rise. Without looking at our own internal traps and darknesses, we keep talking of external solutions to these problems. That is just wishful thinking. There is no way forward but the one inward.
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Originally published in the The Sunday Guardian on 4 jan '25
The kind of challenges we face as we approach another new year are unprecedented. Given the novel and cataclysmic nature of these challenges, old approaches are not going to succeed. These challenges come from almost all areas of human activity, and therefore their origin has to do with something in the very nature of the human being. Retaining the same mind that gave birth to these problems, there is no way we can come to a solution. Enumerating four of the most critical threats facing us, I invite you to see that we cannot adequately respond to our conditions without acknowledging that the problem lies firstly within us.
Climate Change
The average global temperature in 2024 was higher than even that of 2023, the warmest year in history. Greenhouse Gases reached record levels this year, with Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increasing from 278 ppm in 1750 to more than 420 ppm in 2024. Ocean heat this year was the highest ever recorded. Given the trends, ocean warming will continue, and what’s even more scary is that it is irreversible on millennial timescales. Sea level rise further accelerated this year because of thermal expansion of oceans and melting glaciers. Last 10 years, global mean sea level rose at more than double the rate between 1993 and 2002. Antarctic sea-ice extent this year was the second lowest ever.
