Why I Fast

Dear friends,

Today, on Nov. 14, I am going to voluntarily fast for a whole day in solidarity with the Filipino delegate to the UN COP19 climate talk, Mr. Yeb Sano.

I chose this day because on the same day, Divest Middlebury is holding a candlelight vigil to commemorate the lives that have been lost, and are still being lost, due to Typhoon Haiyan. Just as Mr. Yeb Sano is fasting because his “countrymen... are struggling to find food back home and… [his] brother... has not had food for the last three days,” I am choosing to refrain from eating on Thursday because I treat his countrymen as my countrymen, his brother as my brother, and I want to bring this issue to more people’s attention on campus.

Far too many people do not have the luxury that I do to choose to fast: Typhoon Haiyan alone has caused 2.5 million people  in the Philippines to rely on food assistance. Many more storms like this one will come, and 95% of the death resulted from such “extreme climate disasters” is going to be people from developing countries.

The reason why this figure is so skewed towards people in “developing” countries is because they are less adequately prepared for coping with climate disasters than “developed” countries. Rapid population growth and urbanization produce clusters of poorly constructed houses in cities in developing countries which are extremely vulnerable to even smaller-scale climate events, let alone “extreme climate disasters.” Natural disasters, as it turns out, are only part of the story: poverty, a booming population, geography, meteorology, and shoddy construction, are equally, if not more, important factors.

Whether we accept it or not, climate change does not lie in the distant future. It is now, and it is right here. I have a few friends from the Philippines who have family members there, as I know that many of you do, too. Even if this is not the case, you may well know other friends that do. Thus, it is utterly impossible to deny how closely our lives are linked to the lost lives and survivors of the strongest typhoon to have ever hit land.

This record-setting storm has made it clear to the world that we are now living in an era of “Climate Changed.” Yet, governments around the globe are not doing enough to curb carbon emissions. Not only has CO2 concentration in the atmosphere risen to an all-time high last year, but the gap between the estimated level of CO2 in 2020, as calculated from the latest pledges made by countries around the world, and the targets required to keep temperatures below 2 degrees Celsius, has reached an all-time width as well. In other words, the chasm between ambition and reality is only widening year after year.

This is going to be an important day for us to remember the time we are in. I hope that many of you will join me, or at least support me, in this fasting, so that collectively, we can make a powerful statement that we recognize that climate change is not an abstraction, nor is it merely a scientific fact, but an indispensable part of our daily, lived reality.

With gratitude,

Adrian

ADRIAN LEONG ’16 is from Hong Kong.