Dear Ancestors,
You might not believe it but, the earth has rebelled. She trembles with excruciating disappointment and hurt. Her magna core bubbles in fury as we endlessly wave her flames higher, test her patience with humanly mockery. Ancestors, this situation might be unthinkable, that places that shouldn’t burn are ablaze and those that should sparkle are blown into chaos.Since you cherished every rice grain on your plate, those were the results of your endlessly tattered hands. Your feet bore the remnants of soil from unfamiliar places whilst these days wheels obstruct and command their way forward, emitting toxic gas that poisoned those who breathe and those who don’t. You conversed with the plants that offered their saplings to you, they listened because you protected them, you tended to them and you knew: Man and Nature are equals of one divine body. But don’t worry, many humans are working to apologise to Mother Earth and bandage her wounds. The United Nations presented 12 goals to ensure sustainability and I’m ensuring these goals are met when I go abroad to Hong Kong. You see I trudge forward seeking environmental justice even in my career, working on a Right of Nature project with The Environmental Law Foundation using legal methods to fight for a sustainable future (https://elflaw.org/news/the-rights-of-nature-a-new-era-of-environmental-protection/). Hong Kong, though dazzling with natural beauty, is a metropolitan treasure and thus I will chase international environmental justice through opportunities at the university and their extensive research, furthermore withholding profits from unethical wildlife tourism, and continuously making such conscious decisions. Additionally, my upkept new year’s resolution is to buy exclusively re-loved clothes to reduce the 45% GHG emissions that consumerism causes. Alongside charity shopping, thrifting, making my own clothes and innovating new ways to wear old ones, there are apps such as vinted and depop that I use relentlessly to ensure this (https://environment.co/consumerism-and-the-environment/#:~:text=Consumerism%20is%20on e%200f%20the,goods%20all%20over%20the%20world). Walking everywhere, using the bus, taking the train (saving 150 kg of CO2) are other simple things I do to reduce many tonnes of CO2 emissions.
Significantly, there was one day I had restless hands, they itched and wriggled. My mother told me that my hands were too bored, too clean and too spoilt. My hands were immediately sentenced to many weeks of aiding her everyday with her garden. Suddenly they were soiled, stung, bitten and marked, but they also clapped. Each plant, as if it were a child, had to be cared for thoroughly, and when I was presented with the fruits of my labour, my hands clapped instinctively. I found myself less wasteful, for my hands refused to let its hardwork go to waste and by composting kitchen scraps. These green practises helped me support local ecosystems and local gardens or markets which I will do abroad. My climate guilt transformed into climate consciousness and l ushered your knowledge and foresight.
