As I type these words on January 25th 2024, we are breaking another all-time temperature record here in Bali. It is 32C degrees in the Ubud area, above the previous record of 31C for this day in history. The average maximum was once below 30C (see the image above). So when does such unusual weather indicate a new climate regime, rather than just a few unusually hot days? That should be a matter of scientific analysis, not ideological posturing. If we are analytical, the answer depends on the data on long-term trends and the possible reasons for such trends. As I have recently become an organic farmer, this information is even more important to ascertain, because it influences what and when to plant, as well as how much protection from water and temperature stress we should invest in. So I am going to share with you what I found out about Bali’s weather, and what this means for those of us who live in this region. I also think it has implications for people everywhere, so wherever you are, please read on…
I discovered that up-to-date local information on climate over the last couple of decades is difficult to find within Indonesia. As agriculture is such a huge part of the economy, and obviously key to everyone’s survival, this lack of access to data came as a surprise. Have all the agencies working on climate been so focused on their next fancy project and conference than helping poor people who grow their food obtain good information to farm successfully, just slipped their attention? Maybe.
I was able to find some long-term information on climate in regions of Indonesia. According to official statistics from the World Bank, Bali’s temperature has increased since the 1950s, including both the averages and maximums, as have the frequency of disruptive weather events, such as droughts and floods. The average from all the weather stations across Indonesia between 1951 and 1981 was 24.29C and it rose to 25.19C between 1991 and 2020. So that’s about one degree Celsius average rise. In case you are a ‘conspiranaut’ and doubt this kind of weather data, then please note that these measurements come from the World Bank, which has never been a strong environmental advocate. Instead, for decades it ploughed huge sums of credit into massive industrialisation efforts.
The Bank’s climate data ended in 2020. And if you have been paying attention, you will know there have been dramatic changes since then. Temperatures increased rapidly, partly due to the end of the cooling La Nina current in the Pacific. Then in 2023, the opposite El Nino ocean pattern began. The full warming force of that will be felt in 2024. That was widely predicted some years ago, by mainstream climate experts, not just analysts like me. But recent global temperate rises are also partly due to an intentional reduction of aerosol pollution from shipping, which reduced the cooling effect of those gases, as well as the increased sunspot activity from a new solar cycle. Those factors were also predicted, including by myself and some colleagues who attended the Egypt climate conference in 2022. One of the reasons we went there was to warn of the dangers of a leap in temperature due to a reduction in aerosol masking. We were ignored by the climate establishment, and only now are they talking about reporting on this issue in 3 years’ time. Some rather farcical members of the climate establishment even accused us of being aligned to fossil fuel companies for pointing out the need for action to protect poor people in megacities from temperature spikes due to cleaner energy generation.
One non-predicted event that affected temperatures in 2023 was the eruption of an underwater volcano, which increased water vapour in the high atmosphere. However, all of the heating factors I’ve just mentioned add to a warmer baseline due to increased greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide and methane, as well as a reduced cloud cover due to a far lower forest cover than 50 years ago. I explain all the ‘ins and outs’ of these mechanisms, both combining and critiquing mainstream climatology, in Chapter 5 of Breaking Together, which you can listen to for free. If you doubt the climate science but don’t take it seriously enough to read or listen to a chapter, then I recommend my brief essay on the main claims of climate sceptics. If you are more concerned about how the threat of global warming is being used to control us, then I recommend my public letter on how we need to respond to both realities of the greedy authoritarians and a dangerously changing climate. Pretending that the latter doesn’t exist won’t make it go away.
Some people are more connected to natural reality than others, due to their lifestyle and livelihood. I’m talking about farmers, not yoginis. That’s why published research on the perceptions of Indonesian farmers has found they mostly agree that the current climate is different from 10 years ago and has negatively impacted their yields. Since becoming involved in farming, I have noticed a change in my own perceptions of the weather. Previously I thought that an El Nino warm period would mean more lovely sunny days here in Bali. As a British guy, you could forgive me for that. But since being involved in farming, I now see rain and feel happy for the plants and staff at our farm. That is an unexpected benefit from my career change. But even if you are an urbanite, whose closest experience with soil is the fresh vegetables counter at your supermarket, you should have noticed some changes in the weather. In my case, for the last 15 years across South-East Asia, I was hearing from locals in cities that the rains weren’t as clockwork as they were before the early nineties. An elderly man in Singapore once told me that, in the past, they could almost set their watches to the start of the afternoon rains (3pm!).
I explained the local climate situation recently at a meditation retreat I co-hosted. Due to the drought in Bali since August 2023, which is the worst in living memory for many farmers, the prices of many fresh fruits and vegetables on the north coast of Bali have jumped by a third. Rather than the Temple asking for higher donations from the people coming to meditate, they changed the menu to provide only a soup in the evening. I explained why the menu had changed, and that what we might experience as a moment of dissatisfaction is being experienced as a major economic problem by poorer Balinese families. Worse, it will soon be a nutritional problem for many more people on the island.
People who are involved in public debates can become extremely divorced from reality, as they operate amongst the delusional stories promoted by one set of vested interests or another. When people such as the Heritage Foundation boss at Davos mentions “so-called climate change”, I hear a privileged tongue that’s paid by elites to tell self-serving stories. Likewise, when I hear a ‘new age’ foreigner in Bali say there is no climate change, or that it is occurring because of planetary constellations, or might be faked by lasers, I perceive a similar disconnected privilege. Being insulated from either farming losses or difficulties in affording fresh food, they’re choosing to believe a story that makes them feel better.
I’m aware that none of the stories we tell about reality are precise depictions of reality. The map is not the landscape, after all. But some stories about reality are developed with clearer intention to try to know and communicate aspects of reality. When people attempt to understand the world with stories of reality that will fit with how they are choosing to regard themselves, or present themselves to others, then delusions increase. We’re all susceptible to such a process, but there are varying levels of awareness of how it is occurring. Instead, some people test the truth of an idea by how it makes them feel when speaking it aloud or sharing it on social media.
The social media aspect of this process of story-validation has become a particular mess. Although we live in an age of immense communication capabilities, the life-critical changes I am writing about in this post are almost entirely absent from the Bali-related videos on TikTok and Instagram. That’s because social media ‘influencers’ tend to focus on one of two approaches. We see either ‘beautiful life’ videos (which basically say “be more gorgeous like me”) or ‘beware evil’ videos (which demand people “be more outraged like me”). That is why, if you search social media, you won’t find quality content on the drought in Bali, what the impacts are, or why it’s happening. Because of that, conversations on what to do about it can’t even begin.
For many people, the root cause of being attracted to denial is a lack of self-acceptance. That leads to fears of experiencing difficult emotions, fears of not having solid stories of reality and one’s place within that, and an insidous fear of being shamed by a community that one identifies with. That all relates to the trauma we experience growing up in modern societies, which separates us from our true natures, wider nature, and the divine. It’s something I discussed with psychologists who specialise in trauma, which led me to write an essay on it.
I understand why many people don’t want to know, and prefer to complain about Davos, Bill Gates and the rest. Because it’s scary stuff. In the environmental profession I am considered overly alarmist, and yet when warning of future societal collapse back in 2018, I didn’t anticipate the world climate would have warmed on average by over 1.5C already by 2023, which some data sets now indicate. That’s a level identified by top scientists as one where many self-amplifying feedbacks kick in, taking the situation further out of our hands. I knew from peer-reviewed research on the Pacific Ocean that such a level of global warming was possible by 2025, and then within a few years we would likely see a collapse in the international grain markets. That’s because the northern jet stream would become increasingly wonky, creating crazy weather that would damage harvests in many of the major grain producing regions of the world.
Unfortunately, this weather stress to our food supply comes on the back of many other pressures on agriculture. I spent months looking at that with a research team and put the findings together in a chapter describing the impending breakdown in the global food system. I recommend you read or listen to it, as, like me, you will need to keep eating. Indeed, ‘Eat’ came before ‘Pray’ and ‘Love’, in the book that made the town I live in, Ubud, such a destination for seekers of meaning and wellbeing.
Hopefully, I have explained some of the context for why we have launched the Bekandze Farm School. It’s a regenerative training centre, helping smallholders in Bali switch to organic and resilient methods of farming. Our aim is for people to rely less on imports of agrochemicals and energy in order to feed ourselves. That key, as the international supply chains in food and other products continue to fracture. If you are interested in how you could help, then please check out our crowdfunding campaign for supporting organic and resilient farming in Bali. Even if you can’t afford to donate, I would really welcome your help in sharing information on our efforts. And especially if you make videos on Tiktok, Instagram and the rest!
Watch my insta/fb reel on Bekandze Farm School here.
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