What Happened in 2025 with Andrew

of the elements. We had heat, flooding, drought, fire storm. According to the World Meteorological Organization, global temperatures in twenty twenty five ranked among the hottest on record.

agriculture and supply chains. Staple production and food imports both suffer due to the heat, and those ripples are going to be felt for the rest of us too, because Brazil is a bread basket of sorts. It's a top exporter of tons of really important agricultural products, and the monsoons also arrived with quite a mood this year. South Asia's five rains came very heavy and very persistent. In many please urban drainage field neighborhoods became isolated by the waters.

Trains and roads were unusable for days. Bangladeshian parts of India saw a catastrophic flooding that took hundreds of lives and displaced millions. Over in the Horn of Africa, wells ran low, pastures, field and small farmers suffered under the pressures of the drought. Their water distribution systems were not built to withstand multi year dry spells, and saw hunger crisises ended up escalating, particularly in Somalia. Yeah, North America

and Europe also had severe wildfires this year. At this point, it's very easy to kind of see them as a new normal, you know. Canada's turned twenty five season pushed agencies into one of their largest domestic wildfire responses in years. Firefighters were stretched, entire towns had to evacuate, and Southern Europe in particuliar a Greece and Spain also saw fast moving fires that consumed homes and utilities and left landscapes

scorched and infrastructure severely weakened. And then, of course they were the hurricanes. This year, the Caribbean was slammed by Hurricane Melissa, a very slow and powerful storm that devastated Jamaica, Cuba, Haiti and others, tearing up infrastructure and leaving large swaths without power for weeks. The storm's exceptional energy is, of course thanks to climacy, and so all these events and I'm definitely leaving outs. I believe their review a few things.

For one, I think it's clear that our systems can't handle the new extremes being brought about by climacy. They may have been built for previous normals, but not this. And this is something that climate scientists have been worn and about for some time. You know, our electrical grids were sized for incremental loads, so they couldn't handle these simultaneous peak demands. Urban stormwater management was built for a particular volume of water over a particular period of time.

They can handle these volumes of water that are pouring down from above. And also what management systems in more arid regions weren't prepared for years of drought, and so the systemic shocks of this year have been very devastating for infrastructure, and unlike their propaganda, which tasted they are necessary for our survival, for our well being, to manage society. State responses to these catastrophes were often reactive and chronically delayed.

Government intervention and international aid helped in some places, I'm not denying that, but communities have also often found themselves on their own, having to improvise survival strategies. And of course with every disaster there is an extremely long tale of recovery after the initial crisis has passed. So we may leave the news cycle, but their people still dealing with the consequences and will be dealing with it in

the year to come. But these disasters continue to show the ingenuity and capability of ordinary people to organize, support, distribute aid, facilitate evacuation, share resources, and so on. So we're not powerless. We don't have to be dependent on slow bureaucracies. Develop resilience. It starts with us as people being proactive, especially you know, I would say, don't wait for the disaster to happen in your area to develop

a response plan. Invest your time and energy in this coming year in horizontal capacities, skill training, community trills, share two libraries, seed and food sovereignty projects, local medical knowledge, decentralize energy and water projects. I don't place much on the demands of the state, but they are also sometimes granted to may be able to apply for that. Can you know, secure some resources in community hands, And of

course keep documenting these incidents as they are happening. You know, don't wait for a disaster to hit your area to learn the lessons that other places had to learn, you know, go and see where your vulnerabilities lie them others have done to respond, train people were necessary, and just try and keep up the good faith. Would you say there was a particular environmental crisis we're naturals, asked to the year that released it out to you.

who are fighting in the revolution in Memma, like laying down their arms and trying to work out how to pull collapse buildings apart before the people in them died. I think that it really was like the poly crisis and then the the flooding of Indigenous communities in Alaska, right the coastal communities that we saw like a month or so ago, And that one hit me particularly hard because, like, these people have been screaming for a decade that climate

change has come. It's not coming, it's come right like the like the end is not nigh for them, The end is here. The ways of life are being destroyed by climate change, and the whole community's got wiped out right just before winter, and in a place which has one of the hardest winters on Earth. All their food caches, right, because these are people who tend to to fish for a lot of food, so the cash food they don't

go to the store were also wiped out. Like It's just one of those examples of like one can't be prepared enough to deal with things in one can't control, right, And one of the things that we can't control is climate change, and it's coming for all of us.

headlines across very different geographies. Madagascar, Morocco, Kenya, Nepal, Peru, and Mexico all had uprisings driven by a mix of grievances rather be corruption, the cost of living, lack of services, violent policing, and a feeling that all institutions had nothing to offer. These movements were not a monolith, you know,

but they did have some common templates, you know. They organized digitally on platforms like discord or telegram, and they mobilized very quickly, a lot faster than states were originally able to keep up with.

in what that leadership brings. In Morocco, the movement gen Z two on two organized demand better education and healthcare, decent housing and jobs, and were eventually met with state

pushback in the form of arrests and infiltrations. No, they eventually want some concessions from the government in the form of greater funding in this sectors demanded and draft bills that incentivize youth participation in the official channels of But it remains we've seen how long that will quell the tide, because it seems to me at least that this is the classic tactic of, you know, incorporating a radical movement

into the machinations of the state to temper its energy. Yeah, in Kenya we saw mass mobilization against police brutality that was met with yet more police brutality and extra judicial killings now numbering in the sixties, with a very clear aim for the suppression of descent. So far, none of their goals have really been recognized or achieved as a movement, and it seems as though they've similed down due to

the share violence that they are faced in response. In Nepal, perhaps the most famous of these stories for this year, the student led uprisings topple the corrupt government and forced concessions with an election coming up next year twenty twenty six. But again, what comes next is yet to be seen. Whether it be lasting, empowering, or sustainable is an open question. It's another uprising where in my view, the fundamental institutions have not been overcome, and thus their goals will not

be achieved mediately. But I think every movement, every generation, has their place for political development and figuring out some of these shortcomings of these approaches. But I think because of how tight the timeline is for the need for like radically drastic action for the sake of the planet and for the people on it. Yeah, I really wish that these lessons were learned a bit quicker, you know, that we didn't have to go through these same cycles

of you know, missteps again and again with movements. Yeah, you're right, but it remains to be seen whether that sort of political development can be accelerated as the crisis accelerates. Yeah.

will be nice and blah blah blah. Right if you live in in this sort of the colonial core, and that didn't work out for most of us, but for gen Z folks, it's like the town that you live and will continue to exist is up for debate, right, Like the climate that you were born in will be completely distinct from the one that you have children raise

children in. Probably the urgency of the need for change is so much with young people today, right, Like you know, yeah, the economy that my generation was promised doesn't exist for us, but the planet that gen Z was promised isn't going to exist for them. And the information system is so fucked for young people today, right, and so captured by

corporate and state interests. And yet despite that, or maybe because of that, we've seen some of the most beautiful revolutions that I can recall, Right, Like, when I speak to gen Z folks in Myanmar, they approach the revolution in a distinct way from the way that like the revolutions I'm familiar with from the nineties and two thousands did, but also just from like a very human desire for a better world, for quality, for a beautiful life, and so like I'm very hopeful at the same time as

I feel for people of the younger generation.

like bringing democracy to people. To be clear, there isn't really a coherent set of exact demands for the revolution, but many of the young people they speak to are looking at how can we create a model that doesn't allow for a genocide to happen against one group, that doesn't allow for the military to walk into one building and take away everyone's future. And I think that's very beautiful.

we haven't seen that. All the time. We have seen a lot more of like this is bad and it has to change, and we're going to make it change, and we'll work out which direction we're moving as we go.

the things that all were were about in nineteen eighty four. Right, it is better that a revolutionarized on what the people want as they continue to move through it, rather than saying we will tell the people what they need and will be the one steering the ship here.

I believe they need to develop infrastructure. You know, let's let's do something that lasts longer than a headline, and of course the actions that you know, I'm not denying that some of these movements are in each and building infrastructure. It's just that those sorts of efforts are less likely to make the international use headlines. Yeah, you know, but

I love to see these essentralized mobilizations. I just want to see them pay with something more prefigurative politics that can sustain them, that can expand the zones of freedom, that can tune their momentum into lasting change. I will say that I appreciate these movements have embraced tactical variety. You know that they it's largely understood the need for anonymity. But I don't want them to keep forward into this

trap of this sort of dissipation of energy. They get a government concession and they dissipate that there's not a long term ambition, or they're not enough steps being taken to resist infiltration and surveillance through operational security.

of causes. They will willingly sell people out. But I have a lot of hope when I say that tentatively, but we can stand up for something that some of mine can read run somewhere, Because even though an uprising like the one in Nepal or Morocco hasn't taken place in Trinidadia, I mean we've been under a state of emergency for the entire time that this new government has been in power. I will say that I often in

you know, casual conversation here rumbling. So we need to do what Nepal did, you know, We need to do a proved it.

of unions, I forgot to mention this. Yeah, India actually had a coalition of major trade unions stage and nationwide protests and strikes.

greater surveillance of our lives. What I am proud of is that people continue to speak out against it, to challenge it, to question it, to call it out wherever they see it. They are people who refuse to support, you know, YouTube channels that are pushing out AI music or EI visuals or II scripts. People who refusing to support you know, pages and profiles that have those kinds of things, or companies that use those sort of that software.

We have to keep that energy up. We have to keep it going, and we're as seeing to build things that will increase our ability to operate outside of the AI fueled corporate overlord Internet that many of us currently exist as pseudo safs within. Yeah, you know, there's a lot of roof open source software intgital commands that are out of the hands of corporations that we can venture into. You know, tech is contested terrain that the tech ordagarchus

are currently winning. But that terrain is something that we can continue to challenge into the new year, definitely. But geopolitics in five was a catalog of catastrophes from continuing was fueled by cast properties to straight up genocides. So in Palestini we saw this year repeated rounds of siege, bombardment and cruelty, repeated cease fire violations and the part of Israel, all enabled by America's military support and political cover.

To this day, food, water, and medical provisions continue to be strained as a result of Israel's genocidal ambitions in Sudan. The fractures they have only worsened as the bloodshed famously can be seen from space. Millions have been internally displaced. The casualties are currently incalculable, and the fighting between the Sudanese armed forces and the rapid support forces rages on, all supported by regional power including Egypt, Saudi Arabia and

the UAE. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, conflicting armed groups supported by the government of the DRC and the neighboring Rwanda, respectively, have continued attacking communities and infrastructure, inflicting mass rapes, and engaging in other war crimes, all while funded by mining operations in one of the most

resource rich regions in the world. In Yemen, the violence continues for tens of millions as the Saudi that coalition, the UAE and Western powers continues to supply arms, logistics, and diplomatic cover for the displacement, collapse, and brutality inflicted upon the civilians of the country. In Ukraine, the war

with Russia continues to consume resources and lives. In the Caribbean Sea, the US ramped up its violence as the targets and bombs boats and international waters that it alleges are carrying drugs and appears to be gear enough for some kind of operation against as we are and resistant groups continue to fight against the military junta, which continues

to receive economic and political cover from neighboring China. Now this isn't exhaustive, so because even if I missed any of the major stories from this year.

every day. What that does to you, Just like not knowing who's going to get killed tonight, right it probably won't be you, very unlikely, it might be might be someone you saw today, might be someone you'd ever met. Dozens of people get killed, but thousands of people have to live in with this sense of fear, and maybe

after a while you get used to it. I don't know, but I don't think we realize like potential of the human joy, even though it's not like a in this case, not like a ground war, right like for many people don't see it as a war. The terrible trauma that that causes. It is not just to the people who are killed in their families, but to so many other people who have to live with the knowledge that, like they could be killed in the world wouldn't care.

not sustainable, fox you up and be people. People wouldn't like wars if we get like you see it to an extent in the way that the European nations talked about World War One, right, like to get a significant number of upper class British people to be opposed to the concept of warfare. It's quite a remarkable endeavor, right like that those are people who have gone to schools whose sole purpose was to raise them as military officers

for empire from the age of five. But we saw it after World War One, because the war wasn't abstract, right it was close by the people dying, one of different class or race. They were everyone, and especially young upper class men who became officers, right like. But somehow along the way since then, we've lost that and we've we've we've convinced ourselves that that this is something that like, it's in a human tragedy, even if it doesn't involve us.

on the people of Palestine. Like in a world where we can see and know more about other people's lives than ever, we've done this thing. Like I don't want to harp on the fact that, like Israel's built on the idea of never again and here they are doing it again, right, But like it's just so sad that like we're in this world where we can know and share more things, and yet it's resulted in somehow are still not seeing our common humanity. I mean more people

have I guess. Also, like one thing that has happened this year, in the last two years that like when I came here, I would never have believed that you would get thousands of American people out to call for the basic human rights of Palestinian people. Like it wasn't a thing that American people who are aware of so like that is something that over the last two years, think we have seen solidarity some of that's.

But it's not the same. It would would be like continually, not to take away from what they did. I think they were very brave actually, but you know, to be able to stand up for the lives of young children in Palestine so consistently, yeah, so vociferously for so long, that's very hot. That gives me, you know, a great sense of hope.

wrong with you? Yet a lot of people showed up against the war in Iraq too, But like, it's good to see that that media project has not succeeded, because it's been two decades my life that it's been trying to succeed.

as long as they have, you know. But it's these outside actors in Sudan and in Palestine that are supporting the fight and supporting the barrage important to suffering, and not supporting the aid necessary to support people. You know, there's been a very slow and insufficient piece of humanity response due to funding gaps, access constraints, and the politicization of aid. And there are people who have managed to

act directly, not waiting for any official channels. In the case of the flotilla, something else that happened this year that I found particularly admirable, But it hasn't been enough so far. It hasn't broken through quite yet, and people are still without much of the necessary aid it will

sustain even their survival. We also see that even as these wars are ragion in these regions, in many cases the extraction is continuing, particularly in Congo and Sudan, yeah, I think it's very critical that we continue to speak out against these wars as we get into twenty twenty six, where we see them, we document what's happening, We keep a record offline of what's going on in dependently because another thing I've noticed this year is how blatantly the

news media is showing its colors, you know. And that's where independent media is meant to fill the gaps, even though it may not have as many resources as industream media, you know, So things like this podcast is Herefore, it's something that I think when the listeners can take responsibility in being part of in gathering information and archiving information, in sharing sources and direct connects so that the information

gets out there. And so as we wrap up this retrospective for twenty twenty five, two things in particular stand out to me. One is that our system is brittle as hell, and two that people are resilient as hell and taken together, I believe it's an indication that we are indeed in a world of transition, and it's still uncertain and as to how it will turn out, the future hasn't been written yet, We don't know. We do

have the ability to choose what we do next. So if you look towards a new year, think about something you want to build or strengthen, whether it be a skill, a relationship, a practice, a project of some kind that conceive you and those around you going forward. That's what I have for today. All power to all the people, Happy New Year, Peace.