“When birds fall from the sky and the animals are dying,a new tribe of people shall come unto the Earthfrom many colors, classes, and creeds.And who by their actions and deedsshall make the Earth green again.They will be known as the Warriors of the Rainbow.”
I have been on board October 2013, in North Vancouver at the Lonsdale Quay. I remember their huge green flag saying “Release the Sunrise” referred I guess to the mission “Artic30”, where the Greenpeace activists attempted to scale a Russian drilling platform as part of a protest against Arctic oil production.
Russian authorities seized the Greenpeace ship in international waters and detained the crew of 28 activists and two freelance journalists. At some extend I assumed that the word “sunrise” was used to define the crew arrested in Russia because the sunrise itself always signified any great awakening to me. The awesome beauty of the setting sun is also symbolic of the beauty and mystery of life itself. As the sun sets, light fades, which is symbolic of the forces of darkness. Sunrise usually represents a new life or hope, whereas sunset often symbolizes a life that is about to end or the ephemerality of existence.
I met the Captain Derek Nichols and the crew, who told us that the ship comes equipped with five sails and the ability to make its own water. They also shared their missions and journey at the end of World for the Arctic. One of the first thing I learned was the Captain’s definition of Leadership.
What’s a Leader?
A leader will not be the one that talks the loudest, boasts of successes, or has the support of the elite. Leaders will be those whose actions speak the loudest, the ones that have demonstrated wisdom and courage and have proven that they work for the benefit of all. To be on board of this ships is not about how to get more things done; it’s about how to get the right things done.
Climate change is a complex and intimidating threat.You can't see it when you look out your bedroom window.Its impacts are often not immediately noticeable,nor are the benefits of acting against it.
On board, I thought, all at once to my studies on systems science, quickly understanding that everything is connected such as the Environmental sustainability. Earth is a complex, dynamic system. It’s dynamic systems are made up of the solid earth (geosphere), the oceans, lakes, rivers, glaciers and ice sheets (hydrosphere), the atmosphere, and organisms (biosphere). The Earth’s climate is instead a non-linear dynamical system. What does it means? I will try to explain it in a nutshell as I’m Italian and my brain’s is now busy putting all of this in English words. When using linear systems, we expect that the result will be proportional to the input. I.E We turn up the gas on the stove (altering the initial state) and we expect the water to boil faster (increased heating in proportion to the increased heat). Wouldn’t we be surprised though, if one day we turned up the gas and instead of heating, the water froze solid! That’s nonlinearity!
Our world’s climate is a non-linear dynamical system. According to the Theory of Chaos, Nonlinear systems are not tame and are not predictable. Nonlinear systems can shift from orderly, predictable regimes to chaotic regimes under changing conditions. In nonlinear systems, even infinitesimal changes in input can have unexpectedly large changes in the results – in numeric values, sign and behavior. What kinds of real world dynamical systems are nonlinear? Nearly all of them! Social systems, like economics and the stock market are highly nonlinear, often reacting non-intuitively, non-proportionally, to changes in input – such as news or economic indicators. Well, all that I’m trying to say is something most people ignore, but if you are reading this, you can’t forget.
In the era of global warming, nothing is really far away.WE ARE ALL CONNECTED and INTERCONNECTED.
No wonder that in the Era of Global Warning, It’s easy said that The city of Venice, Italy finds its perfect twins/match in Bangladesh, South Asia. What do Bangladesh and Venice have in common? Most would guess little or nothing and it is indeed hard to see a link between the lush, green mangroves of the Bay of Bengal and the wooden piers lined with gondolas of the Venetian lagoon. But the two places share a common challenge, and a vital one at that: they both are among the most vulnerable places to climate change in the world.
I didn’t mean to bother any of you with little notes from quantum physics books, (well I also believe that if these topics – real stuff we live in and we’re surrounded by, which is our W-O-R-L-D) sounds boring is because schools never gave us the right passion in the process of Education and Learning, however – if you are a good human being, once you come aboard of such a ship, you see things deeply, and more responsibly and I think that we are lucky there are persons and large group of passionate individuals who have dedicated their lives to climate change while most of “the rest of the people” go through life pretending, thinking that life is all about their ego fed daily by their social media apps and new temporary stories to be shared on their mobiles.
Over time I figured that “until you go through a problem yourself” you do not even see it. I feel frustrated that I cannot even convince those closest to me that we are, as a society, being irresponsible, and our children, and people around the world will pay the price. It seems like nobody cares, but deep down, it’s no true. Truth is people is not educated to feel, neither to listen to themselves, the world around themselves. People need to learn what is empathy and sympathy again, a place where I feel your sorrow and you feel my hardships. Sometimes I feel dismayed, sad, depressed, overwhelmed, powerless about what happens in the world but I also feel “unwilling to give up”. I experienced this statement on my own skin. Before I became allergic to some specific food I’ve totally ignored, and diminished the serious matter about food allergies, and just like in this case, If your father doesn’t leave home to go spend years in the North Pole, people do not really feel emphatically involved. At some stages they ignore the existence of those individuals around the globe. We have little green backyard and we think we are happy, until a new neighbor with a greener backyard shows up next door. Is that really happiness?
You are not a waste of space.
The only way to make a change is “Internalization” – this “complicated word” means to change our attitude from “It’s my fault” to “it’s my responsibility”. We do not need drama and victims, we need people who take actions and embrace what rules this life like if we have witnessed firsthand the depths of someone else actions, works and efforts. The rest of the people, those who live ordinary lives are important too. They are messengers, or at least, that’s what we all should be.
LISTEN TO YOUR CALL IN LIFE
That’s why I want to underline a very important concept the youth may ignore as well. When we talk about climate change and Researchers We are NOT talking about ROBOTS, we are talking about HUMAN BEINGs: fathers, mothers, husbands, wives, families. People who are giving their life away to make the world a better place. What if he was your dad? What if she was your daughter? How would you consider their work? How would you act toward the others and the world itself. What would you do? What would be your action, and your call?
BE A RAINBOW WARRIOR.
I feel the twenty first century is the ‘human century’ because of the huge global challenges we face. Of these I believe global poverty, global security, global inequality, environmental degradation and climate change are the most pressing. Of these,climate change is the most insidious as it make all the other worse. Yet, People act like “Climate Change” doesn’t exist.
DO NOT THINK BECOME!
English 
Italian