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Recently, the world was shaken with the news of wildfires that hit a large number of countries, especially in North Africa and Europe. These wildfires have ruined over 351,600 hectares (868,822 acres) in combination with Greece, Jerusalem, Lebanon, Turkey, Italy, Algeria and France. The United States is also fighting an unimaginable wildfire known as California’s Dixie Fire. The second largest blaze in California’s history has damaged over 1200 buildings and forced thousands of people to evacuate. To put a simple imagination, California's Dixie Fire has burned at least twice the size of New York City. In other news, Western Europe and China were flustered with surprising floods that destroyed a lot of structures, people's lives as well as mental health. In Germany, many towns were affected, hundreds of people are still missing, cars and rubble are piling up in the streets and at least 120 dead. Meanwhile in China, about 13 million people were affected and 9000 homes were damaged. Don’t be surprised, all these disasters happened this year and there will be more if humans do not act immediately.
So, why are all these phenomena happening? Are humans alert to this situation? Why do many institutions push hard advocating climate campaigns while others easily release 100 metric tons of kerosene a day in space? These questions haunted me for days, until I found some readings highlighting the hidden keypoint of this issue which is from a psychological perspective. There are a lot of insightful psychological perspectives in climate change but my focus here is only one, the Availability Heuristics. This cognitive thinking is a tendency to use information that comes to mind quickly and easily when making decisions about the future. People perceive climate change as a distant event in terms of geography and time. These vivid and recent experiences often defeat abstract statistics. For example, we think global warming is not happening because according to weather forecasters, Malaysia will be cold tomorrow. People regularly confuse temporary local weather with long-term climate change. We make intuitive judgments under the influence of the availability heuristic. Professor Robert Gifford stated, our brains are intended to focus on the immediate circumstance, not on out-of-sight facts or on hazards beyond the horizon. One study in 2011 showed that on warmer-than-usual days, people have a greater belief and readiness in global warming rather than on cooler-than-usual days. As Stephen Colbert tweeted, “Global warming isn’t real because I was cold today! Also great news: World Hunger is over because I just ate”.
Moving forward, we need to ask ourselves, what influences our behavior? What makes us use air conditioning for a long time? Why don't we care about deforestation? why do we prefer to ride the car alone rather than carpool?. All in all, the environment is not limited to aesthetic aspects and physical hygiene alone. The fact is that the balance of the environment and ecosystem has a significant impact on the harmony and well-being of life and it must be in line with the progress of the country and the prosperity enjoyed. The preservation of the environment is mentioned explicitly and implicitly in many verses of the Qur'an and hadith among which Allah SWT says which means: “Corruption has appeared throughout the land and sea by [reason of] what the hands of people have earned so He [i.e., Allah] may let them taste part of [the consequence of] what they have done that perhaps they will return [to righteousness] (30:41)”. Preserving our earth, our home, is our responsibility, a collective responsibility. As mentioned earlier, all the disasters, floods, and wildfires will come back to us like a business. Mark Ruffalo, our “green” superhero, also an environmental advocate put it right, “Climate change is the greatest threat to our existence in our short history on this planet. Nobody’s going to buy their way out of its effects.”
Written by:
Mus'ab Hermee
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