There’s not much time left!

This year, we’re all confined to our homes due to Covid-9. When the body becomes inactive, the mind becomes active. Watching the severe natural disasters of late—especially the torrential rains in Korea and the wildfires raging across the western United States, both on opposite sides of the Pacific—I feel that we don’t have much time left (they say old age is the best part of life, but I wonder if I’ll even have time left to enjoy my blessings...). The wildfires in Australia raged, and now the beautiful natural landscapes of the U.S. West Coast are burning. The root cause of all these natural disasters is “climate change.”

People talk endlessly about environmental issues and climate change, yet they remain trapped in the cycle of production and consumption for the sake of immediate profit. When we see people who have lost everything to natural disasters, we tell ourselves, “That’s not my problem,” or “It won’t happen to me—those disasters only happen to people living on the coast or in forested areas,” and we go on living our lives as usual.

But as global warming accelerates, viruses, floods, wildfires, rising sea levels, and other such threats will become problems for all of us. And if the land we live on is no longer intact, how can any economic activity—production and consumption—possibly take place? Just look at how the economy has been devastated by the coronavirus.

It’s time to create a new economic system suited to our era. Even as times and the environment change rapidly, we are still clinging to outdated customs, ways of thinking, and systems. We cannot just mindlessly follow others, repeat the same routines, and live by doing only what we’re told. Driven by a thirst for something new, we must think “creatively” and consider where we are headed. We don’t have much time left.

09/12/2020 by Dr. Lan Joo