I know… I share your pain. I’m also scared. These are dangerous times for immigrants in America—scapegoats for the social and economic ills of our nation. Our trade partners, too, have come under attack. It’s now tit-for-tat for unfair trade practices. “Liberation Day” on April 2nd has unleashed import tariffs/taxes, ranging from 10 percent to 54 percent, for all countries that sell goods to the United States. What a high-risk economic strategy! But this is just the latest drastic change assaulting us daily since January 20, 2025.

Regardless of our political views or ideology, we the people will have to deal with the negative or unexpected consequences of dismantling our government agencies and picking a fight with our closest allies since the end of World War II. Judging from these developments, it seems that the globalized capitalist economic system is under stress. And so it should be. For how much longer can we sustain an economic model of continual growth and profits that is pushing our planetary life systems to their limits?

Non-human life faces extinction and more frequent, extreme weather events are disrupting and threatening human life. The minority billionaire ruling class (MBRC) believes that environmental and other deregulations are the answer to renewed economic growth. Their insatiable greed blinds them to all the warning signs of economic and societal collapse. Instead, they now grasp at AI, an energy guzzler, to preserve their way of life.

In their State of the Global Climate 2024, released on March 19, 2025, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) confirmed that 2024 was the warmest year in the 175-year observational record. This beats the record set in 2023. Worse still, with an annual average temperature of 1.55°C, we have exceeded the threshold of 1.5°C above the pre-industrial level (1850-1900) set by the UNFCCC Paris Agreement 2015 to significantly reduce the risks of a scorched Earth. My friends, we are now living on a much hotter planet.

As shown in the Copernicus charts below, published in their Global Climate Report 2024, released on January 10, 2025, the atmospheric concentration of the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide and methane continued to increase, hitting levels not seen in 2,000,000 years and 800,000 years, respectively. I repeat: We are now living on a much hotter planet. How much hotter must it get for the MBRC to fully commit to our transition to alternative energy sources?

A hotter Earth means fatal consequences for the interconnected planetary life systems. In 2024, our oceans continued to warm, as did ocean acidification, and sea levels continued to rise. The cryosphere, the frozen parts of Earth’s surface, are melting at an alarming rate as glaciers continue to retreat. Antarctic sea ice reached the second-lowest extent ever recorded. With all this melting, Greenland has become a coveted prize for the MBRC.    

Meanwhile, extreme weather events in 2024 led to the highest number of new population displacements recorded in a year since 2008. In addition to the destruction of homes, critical infrastructure, forests, farmland, and biodiversity (more on this below), these extreme weather events undermine community resilience. Here in Los Angeles County, we’re still in the process of clearing the highly toxic rubble, resulting from the Palisades and Eaton wildfires on January 7th.

What’s more, communities devastated by extreme weather events and other natural disasters—such as earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanic eruptions—cannot count on assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). This Agency, a helpline in times of disaster, now joins other government agencies slated for elimination. An executive order signed on March 18, 2025, seeks to shift responsibility for disaster preparedness and assistance to state and local governments. Meanwhile, there’s a covert plan to punish states with sanctuary laws for immigrants by withholding FEMA funds, previously awarded for disaster assistance (Courthouse News Service dated April 4, 2025). To my knowledge, Los Angeles has not yet been targeted.

Such political games only serve the MBRC. Natural disasters have no respect for political boundaries or affiliations. Just ask the people across the six Southeastern American states pounded by Hurricane Helene in late September 2024. While the rest of us have moved on with our lives, thousands of survivors are still struggling to re-build their lives.

These extreme weather events also impact our planet’s biodiversity that sustains us. Yet, every indicator used by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) to track the state of Nature on a global scale shows a decline in Earth’s biodiversity. Their 2024 Living Planet Report: A System in Peril, released on October 10, 2024, warns us about the ongoing global existential ecological crisis.

Over the past 50 years (1970-2020), the average size of monitored wildlife populations has shrunk by 73 percent as measured by the Living Planet Index (LPI). The database comprises almost 35,000 population trends and 5,495 species of amphibians, birds, fish, mammals, and reptiles. Freshwater populations led the decline with 85 percent, followed by terrestrial (69%) and marine populations (56%).

At a regional level, Latin America and the Caribbean have seen the fastest decline with 95 percent, followed by Africa (76%), and Asia and the Pacific (60%). Europe and Central Asia (35%) and North America (39%) have experienced less dramatic declines.

Threats to biodiversity include: (1) habitat degradation and loss, driven mainly by our food system; (2) overexploitation; (3) invasive species; (4) disease; (5) climate change; and (6) pollution. Unless we change our way of life and relationship with non-human life, several global tipping points—highlighted in the Report—will damage our planetary life systems and destabilize societies worldwide. To maintain a living planet will require nothing less than a transformation of our food, energy, and finance systems.

The urgency of addressing this existential threat to Earth’s biodiversity is nothing new. The United Nations Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), agreed by nations of the world on December 19, 2022, set four goals and 23 targets to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030. I should mention that the United States is not a party of the GBF. Not surprisingly, America did not send a delegation to the UN COP16 Biodiversity Summit, held in Rome during February 25-27, 2025. Participating nations agreed to a strategy for “mobilizing” at least US$200 billion per year by 2030 to help developing countries conserve biodiversity. 

In January 2025, the MBRC executive order to shut down USAID and freeze foreign aid sent conservationists reeling. Funding for nature and wildlife protection projects worldwide are now in jeopardy. In 2023 alone, USAID provided US$375.4 million to such conservation projects. 

There appears to be no end to the rapid fire, drastic changes intended to traumatize and immobilize us. As I have learned from my experience of being abandoned in Brazil with two young children, we can find our strength through adversity. I learned, too, that we are stronger when others stand with us throughout our struggles. Let our nationwide protests on April 5th remind us that solidarity makes us stronger. Solidarity in our private spaces! Solidarity in our shared public spaces!