I cannot talk to you. Not directly, how can I? But I think there are questions you deserve to know the answer to.
Do I deserve this?
It may be shocking to see me (us) trying to live as if nothing is happening. I (we) know you are suffering, I (we) know you don’t deserve this.
What was your role in all this tragedy?
You were born in a different country, where human rights are on a different level. You didn’t choose to be born there. You familiarized yourself with a type of life, you had your friends, your goals, you planned your life. You lived as you were told, as you were allowed to do. When you looked for jobs you found out that the same job in a different country could pay more than twice the salary offered. You found that you weren’t qualified for your local job because you were not
white/male/young/didn’t-go-to-the-main-school to access those jobs, despite your qualifications.
One day you found a partner, and you fall in love. You planned for kids, you wanted a stable life.
And then it happened, everything changed, and now you no longer have a stable future.
But your actions didn't necessarily force this situation, as much as any other person’s actions
How can things change so fast?
In retrospect, it was not completely unexpected. People warned you, society warned you. But, you assumed this problem happens to other people, in other places. We all saw this situation in the movies, the news, again and again until it became just common knowledge. Still, you couldn’t imagine it happening to you.
Why did nobody stop this?
Now that life suddenly became incredibly difficult, I want to acknowledge that I have known about your struggles. I want to acknowledge my role, I am ashamed.
Most of the people I surround with say that this is natural, inevitable, that we have to keep on living. What can one person do after all? This is how our minds work, a system, this is how society works. I should be happy that I am where I am, that I was born a man, that I used my privilege to find my position in life.
But the things I got were stolen from you. You had to work hard to keep my environment. You had to sacrifice your goals for me to grow.
You are probably angry, and you will hit back. How can I react to the violence resultant from my (lack of) action? In this system, the environment will blame it on you. But you are just reacting, you are in your right to be angry.
Your relatives are probably dead due to flooding, overheating, the disappearance of resources that changed the economy, or a tragedy scientists were unable to predict. And you wonder if someone could have stopped this. Well, we didn’t try to stop it. We were so worried trying to make our lives comfortable, making sure to live in a place where global warming will be tolerable.
I want you to know that we knew about you, we knew that every time we use air conditioner we make your problem larger. We all know that the more comfortable our life is, the harder the life of our grandkids will be.
If we had worked together, if the companies had sacrificed their profit (the owners are already rich), if science had stopped pursuing abstract candid results and focused on fighting global warming, if the money spent on advertising, on fashion, on so many tv programs was directed to fight global warming, as a society, we all would have lived less comfortable, but perhaps, during this time of uncomfortable living we could have prevented (or reduced) the problem you are facing.
But we chose living comfortably, as long as the main victim was in another country.