France Is Burning Because the System Chose Fire

July 11, 2026 — 1 Comment

France is burning.

8 minute read.

Not metaphorically. Not poetically. Literally.

France is suffocating under one of the worst heatwaves in its history, the third in less than two months.

Schools are closing or changing schedules. Trains are slowing down. Workers are being told to adapt. Older people are urged to stay indoors. Animals are dying in barns. Rivers are warming. Nuclear power stations are struggling to cool their reactors and being closed down. Farmers are watching the sky, hoping for rain that never comes. Cities are discovering, once again, that concrete, asphalt and glass are not neutral materials. They trap heat.

Every heatwave ends the same way.

“We need to adapt.”

Of course we do. Nobody serious argues otherwise. When temperatures reach 40°C, we need shade, cool public spaces, drinking fountains, schools that do not become ovens, hospitals that can keep functioning and cooling in strategic public buildings, especially for older people, children, sick people, outdoor workers and anyone trapped in poorly designed housing.

But adaptation cannot become the polite word for surrender.

The real question is not how we survive longer heatwaves.

The real question is why we continue to organize society in ways that make them worse.

Unfortunately, that’s the conversation many people would rather avoid.

The climate crisis is not a natural disaster in the way an earthquake is. Scientists warned us for decades. Communities raised the alarm. The solutions have been available for years. Yet, governments protected fossil fuel interests. Oil and gas companies expanded production. Executives collected billions. Politicians delayed, negotiated, softened regulations, greenwashed and lied.

This was not inevitable.

It was a political and economic choice.

Now, the same system that chose fire is trying to sell us fans, bottled water, air conditioners, climate insurance, private pools, green capitalism and survival kits.

The house is burning, and someone has opened a shop in the living room.

Heat Is Only the Symptom

The mistake is thinking this is only about high temperatures.

A heatwave is a stress test for almost everything that keeps society running.

It pushes the human body beyond its limits. It kills directly, especially when nights remain hot and people cannot recover. It damages sleep, concentration, heart health and kidney function. It turns classrooms into places where children struggle to learn and workplaces into places where people struggle to work.

It pushes infrastructure to its limits. Railway tracks expand. Roads soften. Electricity grids strain under rising demand. Hospitals become overloaded.

The irony is that ACs draw more power precisely when energy systems are already under pressure. Nuclear plants need cool water, yet rivers become warmer and shallower. The same heat that increases electricity demand can make electricity harder to produce.

It pushes agriculture as well. Cows produce less milk. Chickens die in industrial sheds. Crops dry out and/or suffer damage that only becomes visible weeks or months later. Soil loses moisture. Water restrictions arrive. Harvests shrink. Food prices rise.

Then everyone acts surprised that groceries become more expensive.

The damage does not end when the thermometer falls.

That’s why surviving the next heatwave is not enough.

The Food System Nobody Wants to Discuss

Climate conversations usually focus on transport.

And transport matters. Flying less matters. Driving less whenever possible matters. The World Cup spread across North America is a perfect example of climate absurdity, an event marketed as global unity while sending teams, fans, journalists and sponsors across an entire continent for entertainment.

But another major part of the crisis rarely receives the same attention because it sits on our plates.

Animal agriculture is one of the least efficient uses of land, water, energy and living ecosystems on Earth.

Livestock occupies roughly three quarters to more than four fifths of global agricultural land, depending on how it is measured, once grazing land and crops grown for animal feed are included. Yet, animal products provide only a minority of the world’s calories and protein. One widely cited Science study found that meat, dairy, eggs and aquaculture use about 83% of farmland while supplying just 18% of calories and 37% of protein.

Read that again.

Most of the farmland.

A fraction of the food.

That is not efficiency.

It is ideology disguised as agriculture.

The system produces far more than meat, milk and eggs. It produces methane, deforestation, polluted rivers, antibiotic resistance, dead zones in coastal waters and immense pressure on land and water.

It also produces immense suffering.

During heatwaves, pigs, chickens and cows cannot simply adapt because consumers expect cheap animal products. Ventilation systems fail. Cooling systems are inadequate or absent. Transport trucks become ovens. Poultry dies by the hundreds of thousands. Dairy cows suffer severe heat stress and milk production falls.

Then the industry presents itself as another victim of climate change while helping drive the crisis in the first place.

This is not about blaming someone trying to feed their family on a tight budget.

It is about being honest.

One of the most effective climate actions available to individuals is reducing or eliminating meat, dairy and eggs. Diets centered on plant-based foods reduce greenhouse gas emissions, free land for ecosystem restoration and place less pressure on forests, rivers and water supplies. As the IPCC concludes, diets richer in plant-based foods can significantly reduce emissions.

That does not mean climate change is the fault of ordinary people buying lunch.

It means food is political.

Our plates are connected to forests, rivers, oceans, workers, animals, subsidies and power.

The Great Paradox: Our Love-Hate Relationship with Nature

The Ocean Is Part of the Climate

The ocean may be the most neglected part of the climate conversation.

We rightly describe forests as the lungs of the planet. They deserve that attention. But the ocean is far more essential to life on Earth. It has absorbed more than 90% of the excess heat trapped by greenhouse gases. It takes in a large share of the carbon dioxide we emit. It produces roughly half of the oxygen we breathe, largely through microscopic phytoplankton.

The ocean is not scenery.

It’s not a backdrop for holidays.

It is one of the reasons this planet is still habitable.

There is something profoundly irrational about destroying marine ecosystems while wondering why the planet keeps overheating.

Industrial fishing is not simply the act of catching fish. It tears apart ecosystems. It removes key species from food webs, kills countless non-target animals and drags heavy nets across the seabed, destroying habitats that took decades, centuries or even millennia to develop.

Bottom trawling is one of the clearest examples. It scrapes the ocean floor like a bulldozer, destroys marine habitats and releases carbon stored in seabed sediments.

Yet this rarely appears in mainstream climate debates.

We are told to fly less, and rightly so.

We are told to drive less, and rightly so.

We are only beginning to hear serious discussion about livestock.

But fishing is still treated as though fish simply appear on supermarket shelves and the ocean can absorb endless extraction without consequence.

It cannot.

If the ocean regulates climate, absorbs carbon dioxide, produces oxygen and stores enormous amounts of heat, protecting marine ecosystems is climate policy.

Eating less fish, or choosing not to eat it at all, is not only an ethical position. It is a climate position.

For those who continue to eat seafood, there is at least an important distinction to make between small-scale fisheries and industrial fleets that empty entire ecosystems.

The ocean is one of Earth’s greatest cooling systems. Protect it at all costs.

Why Air Conditioning Can’t Be the Plan

Air conditioning has an important role.

During extreme heat, it saves lives. Hospitals, schools, care homes, public libraries, emergency shelters and social housing all need effective cooling strategies. No one should die inside an apartment built for a climate that no longer exists.

But air conditioning can’t become our primary response.

Every unit cools an indoor space by releasing heat outdoors. Across an entire city, that extra heat makes streets even hotter, particularly after sunset. Air conditioners also increase electricity demand during the hottest periods of the year. Where electricity still depends on fossil fuels, emissions rise. Even cleaner grids face greater strain as peak demand grows.

Singapore illustrates both the benefits and the limits of this approach.

The city has become highly dependent on cooling. Buildings require constant air conditioning. Those systems release heat into the streets. Outdoor spaces become less comfortable, encouraging people to remain indoors, which increases demand for cooling still further.

The cycle reinforces itself.

That’s not resilience, it’s technological dependence.

We don’t need cities filled with cooled rooms.

We need cities that stay cool in the first place.

We Forgot How to Build for Nature

The most effective cooling technology has existed for millions of years.

Trees.

Not decorative saplings planted in tiny squares of concrete, but mature urban forests and healthy green canopies.

Trees cool cities through shade and evapotranspiration. Temperatures beneath a healthy canopy can be several degrees lower than nearby streets. Grass and soil shaded by trees remain dramatically cooler than asphalt, rooftops and parking lots.

Anyone who has walked barefoot from hot pavement onto shaded grass already understands this without reading a scientific paper.

So why, every time France approaches 40°C, do we talk about buying more air conditioners before planting more trees?

Why do we pave over soil, remove mature trees, expand shopping centres, build vast parking lots and approve developments that trap heat, only to claim that more machines are the answer?

Forests are not simply carbon sinks.

They are climate infrastructure.

They store water, protect biodiversity, stabilise soils, reduce erosion, create humidity and lower temperatures. They make landscapes more resilient long before a heatwave arrives.

Yet even forests are increasingly treated as another industrial resource.

Living ecosystems become timber reserves. Old-growth forests become biomass. Trees are cut down, burned for energy and labelled renewable, while complex ecosystems that took centuries to develop are reduced to units of production.

The same logic appears again and again.

If something can be extracted, it is.

If something can be sold, it is.

The living world is valued less for keeping us alive than for generating another stream of profit.

Water Is Becoming Political

Water is becoming one of the defining political issues of this century.

Yet we still manage it as though nothing has changed.

During droughts, ordinary people are told to take shorter showers. Farmers are asked to reduce irrigation. Small growers are criticised for watering their crops.

Meanwhile, luxury uses fight for exemptions.

Golf courses have become symbols of this contradiction because they expose the politics behind water allocation. While vegetables struggle and ecosystems dry out, perfectly green fairways are often defended. Leisure for the comfortable can receive more protection than food production or ecosystem survival.

Mega-basins reveal the same mindset.

On paper, the idea sounds simple. Capture water in winter and use it during summer.

Reality is more complicated.

Many of these reservoirs are open to the air, increasing evaporation as temperatures rise. They can concentrate control of water in the hands of a limited number of large farms. They often allow water-intensive agricultural models to continue instead of encouraging the transition toward crops and farming systems adapted to the climate that is already arriving.

The question is not whether storing water can ever make sense.

The question is who controls it, who benefits from it and whether it helps transform agriculture or merely postpones change.

A society preparing for the future would treat every drop of freshwater as precious.

Rainwater would be collected wherever possible.

Wastewater would be safely reused.

Leaking infrastructure would be repaired.

Soils would be restored so they can retain moisture.

Cities would remove unnecessary concrete and allow water to return to the ground.

Farmers would receive support to transition toward more resilient practices.

Luxury water use would never be treated as equivalent to drinking water, food production or healthy ecosystems.

The Logic Behind the Crisis

The deeper problem is that our economic system rarely asks what keeps life alive.

It asks what can be sold.

That’s why so many climate conversations end in absurdity.

We’re told to separate our recycling while billionaires fly private jets.

We’re encouraged to feel guilty for driving to work while the richest 1% emits more carbon than billions of people combined.

We’re reminded to save water while enormous data centres consume vast amounts of electricity and freshwater to cool servers powering artificial intelligence, advertising and endless digital consumption.

We debate plastic straws while militaries burn enormous quantities of fuel, flatten cities, destroy farms, poison soil and create another wave of emissions through reconstruction.

The priorities are impossible to ignore once you see them.

The Climate Cost of War

War remains one of the largest blind spots in climate politics.

The climate impact of the war on Gaza has been estimated in the tens of millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent once direct military activity and reconstruction are included.

The opening weeks of the US-Israel war on Iran were estimated to produce several million tonnes of emissions.

Lebanon has accused Israel of ecocide following the destruction of forests, farmland and ecosystems in the south.

Yet military emissions are still treated as though they exist outside the atmosphere.

As though bombs leave no carbon footprint.

As though fighter jets fly on moral complexity.

As though hospitals, schools, roads, farms and homes rebuild themselves without steel, cement, machinery and energy.

We can’t keep pretending these emissions don’t count simply because they’re politically inconvenient.

The pattern is difficult to ignore.

Capitalism drives extraction.

Extraction fuels empire.

Empire produces war.

War destroys societies.

Destruction demands reconstruction.

Reconstruction creates more emissions.

Then we’re told that buying a bamboo toothbrush is the meaningful response.

It is not.

Personal Responsibility Matters, but It Is Not Equal

None of this means personal choices are meaningless.

They matter because they reduce demand for destructive industries, help shift culture and make political demands more credible.

But responsibility is not shared equally.

A working family struggling to pay rent is not comparable to a billionaire with private aircraft, multiple homes, yachts and investments in fossil fuels.

Someone eating the foods they were encouraged to consume from childhood is not comparable to multinational agribusinesses lobbying to protect industrial livestock.

A commuter driving because public transport is inadequate is not comparable to governments that refuse to invest in reliable trains, cycling infrastructure and walkable cities.

The message can’t be that ordinary people are the problem.

The message is that we live inside a system designed to make destructive choices easy, profitable and normal while making better choices more expensive, less accessible or socially unusual.

Recognising that distinction is not about avoiding responsibility.

It is the first step toward directing responsibility where it belongs.

What We Can Do

None of this means waiting for someone else to act.

Some of the simplest changes are still among the most effective.

Eat less meat, or stop eating it.

Eat less fish, or stop eating it. If you choose to keep eating fish, understand the difference between small-scale fisheries and industrial fleets that empty entire ecosystems.

Buy fewer clothes. Buy second hand. Repair what you own. Stop treating fashion as a weekly identity update.

From Cash to Trash: 19 Everyday Things You’re Oversaturated With

Do the same with appliances. Borrow, share, repair and buy used whenever possible.

Build a culture where tools, equipment, transport and household goods are shared instead of endlessly duplicated.

Fly less.

Drive less whenever practical.

Support political parties and movements that take climate change, biodiversity, animal welfare, water management, public services and peace seriously. Voting alone will not solve the crisis, but electing governments that deny climate science, protect fossil fuel interests and normalise war will accelerate it.

Above all, reject fake solutions.

A city with air conditioning but no trees is not prepared.

A country with mega-basins but dying soils is not prepared.

A food system built on industrial animal suffering is not prepared.

A sporting culture that flies millions of people across continents for profit is not prepared.

A digital economy that consumes ever more electricity and water in pursuit of endless growth is not prepared.

A world that treats war as ordinary is not prepared.

France is not ready for what’s coming, and that pains me.

Europe and America aren’t ready either.

The Crisis Behind the Crisis

The tragedy is that even by the narrow standards of economic growth, this system is failing.

Heat kills workers.

It reduces productivity.

It damages harvests.

It weakens infrastructure.

It raises healthcare costs.

It disrupts schools.

It destabilises insurance.

It pushes food prices higher.

It forces governments to spend billions (of our money) responding to disasters they chose not to prevent.

Even someone who cares nothing for animals, forests, rivers, oceans or social justice should recognise one simple reality.

This model is becoming too expensive to sustain itself.

The climate crisis is not only an ecological crisis.

It is a crisis of imagination.

We keep trying to preserve the lifestyle that created the emergency, then call that realism.

But there is nothing realistic about filling unliveable cities with more air conditioners while cutting down trees.

There is nothing realistic about building reservoirs while refusing to transform agriculture.

There is nothing realistic about defending industrial livestock, industrial fishing, fossil fuels, permanent war and luxury consumption while asking ordinary people to adapt.

Realism begins by accepting that an economy built on endless extraction can’t produce a liveable planet.

We don’t need a parasasol over the apocalypse.

We need accountability.

We need to recognise that climate is not a separate issue. It runs through everything.

Our cities.

Our countryside.

Our food.

Our transport.

Our water.

Our forests.

Our oceans.

Our economies.

Our wars.

Not because that sounds radical.

Because the moderate path has become the one driving the crisis.

The planet is not burning because we failed to understand what was happening.

It’s burning because those with the power to change course chose not to.

That choice can still be reversed.

But only if we stop confusing adaptation with acceptance and start confronting the system that keeps choosing fire.

Thanks for reading. Make that change.

Teekay

A place without clocks

March 25, 2026 — Leave a comment

This isn’t fiction. It’s called the African Jerusalem.

People there don’t need clocks. The bees tell the time.

As my readers know, I’m vegan, so I don’t take from animals, not even honey. That hasn’t changed. But in the highlands around Lalibela, I noticed a different way of living with them, one rooted in respect and faith.

Reasons why we don’t eat honey

I spent four years of my teenage life in Ethiopia, then returned again at 22. Some places stay with you in a way that doesn’t fade, and for me, this is one of them.

Not far from Lalibela, in rural areas often referred to locally as Gueorgis, beekeeping isn’t just a livelihood. It’s something older, something spiritual. Among Ethiopian Orthodox Christian communities, bees are not seen as simple insects. They’re often regarded as pure creatures, sometimes described as reflecting the discipline and harmony of angels. Not because they’re divine, but because they’re part of a creation that follows a precise order, one that humans are meant to observe and respect.

That idea of order shows up everywhere, especially in how people relate to time.

The concept of time

There’s a belief I heard more than once while I was there. The bees give the time three times a day. In the morning around what we would call 10, then at midday, and again in the afternoon around 3. These are the moments when their activity peaks, when they leave in visible waves to gather nectar. It’s not a clock in the modern sense, but it becomes one in daily life.

And in many of these rural areas, that matters more than any watch.

Because the reality is that in remote parts of Ethiopia, especially around Lalibela, people have historically lived without precise, mechanical timekeeping. Time is read through the sun, through patterns. Morning begins when the light settles a certain way. Midday is when the sun stands above you. Evening arrives when shadows stretch and the air cools.

People don’t meet at exact hours. They meet in moments. And everyone understands those moments.

There’s a cliché you hear often about Africans being fashionably “late,” about Ethiopians not caring about time. I don’t take that at face value. Without claiming it as a proven explanation, I think it says more about the observer than the people being described.

If your entire system is built around minutes and precision, then anything outside of that looks like disorder. But what if it’s just a different structure?

For instance, in Islamic cultures, time is extremely precise. Daily prayers are tied to exact solar positions. Fasting begins and ends at defined moments. The lunar calendar governs entire cycles of life. Time there is something to be measured carefully and adhered to strictly.

In contrast, in many rural societies, time is lived before it’s measured. It flows with what God has set in motion, rather than being cut into exact units. So what looks like “lateness” might simply be life unfolding without the pressure of the clock.

And Ethiopia takes that even further in a way most people don’t even realize.

It doesn’t just live time differently. It counts it differently.

There’s what we call international time, and then there’s Ethiopian time. In Ethiopia, the day starts at what we would call 6 AM, roughly sunrise. That’s hour one. So what we call 7am becomes 1 o’clock. Noon becomes 6. What we call 6 PM becomes 12. It’s not confusion. It’s consistency with the sun. The first hour begins when light begins.

It’s a system that actually makes a lot of sense. It aligns the clock with lived reality rather than abstract convention.

The calendar follows the same logic.

Ethiopian calendar has 13 months, not 12. Twelve months of 30 days, and a thirteenth month of 5 days, or 6 in a leap year. That last month, Pagume if my memory hasn’t failed me, is short, almost like a pause between cycles.

Thus, the new year doesn’t begin on January 1st. It begins around September 11th. Right after the heavy rainy season, when the land resets, when the skies clear, when life begins again. It’s agricultural, but also spiritual. A renewal that actually follows the environment people live in.

And because of how this calendar was preserved, based on older Christian calculations of the Annunciation, Ethiopia is about 7 to 8 years “behind” the Gregorian calendar. So while much of the world is in 2026, Ethiopia is in 2018.

It’s not that one is right and the other is wrong. It’s that one remained rooted in its own continuity, and I love and salute that.

Beekeeping in the African Jerusalem

That continuity matters when you look at places like Lalibela, often called the African Jerusalem. Tied to Gebre Mesqel Lalibela, whose name is understood to mean “the bees recognize his greatness/sovereignty”, it reflects one of the oldest continuous Christian traditions in the world. Christianity has been practiced in Ethiopia since at least the 4th century, long before much of Europe fully adopted it.

So when people bring honey to churches, when priests bless bees and beekeepers, it’s not symbolic in a modern sense. It’s continuity across centuries.

And that continuity is visible in movement too.

During honey harvesting seasons, some people from extremely remote villages set out for the markets of Lalibela, carrying honey in hand-crafted clay jars to sustain their families. They walk for days, not hours, days!

They move across the highlands, guided by the sun, by memory, by instinct. No maps, no schedules. Just direction.

Along the way, they stop at churches. Some of them centuries old, carved into rock. They offer part of their honey. Priests receive it, bless it, sometimes bless the bees themselves. It’s not commerce. It’s passage.

When night falls, they stop.

No tents. No inflatable beds. No modern equipment. They sleep outside, on the ground, with whatever they carry. Then at sunrise, they continue. Dozens of kilometers, step after step, until they reach the central market.

And this still happens today.

Part of what makes this possible is the geography of the Ethiopian highlands, historically known as Abyssinia. Compared to neighboring regions in Kenya or Tanzania, which are home to large populations of dangerous wildlife, the high plateaus around Lalibela are relatively safer. Fewer large predators, different ecosystems. It doesn’t mean there’s no risk, but it makes long-distance walking without protection far more viable.

The beehives themselves are adapted to this environment. Made from hollowed logs, woven fibers, and natural seals, they protect the bees from temperature swings and pests, and can survive in remote areas with minimal attention. Over generations, this system has allowed Ethiopian beekeeping to continue for at least 1500 years, deeply tied to the rhythms of the land.

The climate shapes everything too. Much of Ethiopia doesn’t follow four seasons, but cycles of rain and dryness that vary by altitude. Life organizes itself around what is given, and when it’s given, whether for people or for bees. In this context, priests play a role. Honey and candles are brought to churches, blessed, and prayers are offered for people and their bees.

Provision ultimately comes from God, and humans participate within limits they cannot control.

Even so, tension remains. People treat the bees with care and respect, but taking honey is still taking. Even when done carefully, it remains a form of exploitation. It may be necessary, it may be balanced, but it must also be acknowledged.

What stayed with me after all these years and despite how much I traveled was the alignment. A place where time is not just counted differently, but felt differently. Where a day doesn’t begin at midnight because a clock says so, but when light actually appears. Where a year resets not in the middle of winter, but after the rains have passed. Where journeys are measured in effort, not in minutes.

In a place like Lalibela, you start to question what we consider “normal.”

Maybe precision isn’t always clarity.

Maybe being “on time” isn’t always being in sync.

And maybe there are ways of living, still existing today, that haven’t forgotten that time was never meant to be owned, only followed.

Thanks for reading.

Teekay

Winter knows something we forgot

March 18, 2026 — Leave a comment

You don’t hate winter, you hate how we live through it.

I’m such a winter person. I resisted that idea for years because I don’t particularly enjoy being cold and I absolutely hate humidity, but I’m done arguing with it now.

Winter is my favorite season, the one that makes me feel most alive. Fall comes close behind. Maybe I’m really a fall-first person who only settles once winter arrives. Fall feels like a threshold, a kind of preparation, while winter is the place it all leads to.

Most people say they hate winter, but I don’t even think that’s true. I think they hate winter under capitalism, which is a very different thing.

Winter isn’t simply December 21st to March 20th like we’re taught in school. December 21st is the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year, the deepest point of darkness. In many ways, that’s peak winter. It’s both the heart of it and the beginning of its slow release.

If you look at older seasonal systems, especially the Celtic calendar, winter is often understood differently. It begins around early November, with Samhain, and transitions toward spring around early February, with Imbolc. I’ve always intuitively aligned with this rhythm, a rhythm that feels more real in the body.

Winter always makes me nostalgic about my childhood. Where you grow up shapes your relationship to it. Below the equator, winter falls during what we call summer months. It’s shorter, less harsh. It’s still winter, but it doesn’t carry the same weight. Above the equator, winter has a presence. It changes everything.

Winter in New York, for example, is unmatched. But to understand it, you have to start with fall. Fall is special in a way that’s hard to replicate. The air sharpens, the leaves start falling, the temperature drops just enough to wake you up. School starts again. People return from summer scatteredness with a sense of purpose. There’s motivation, a quiet hope that something new can begin before the year closes.

Then come the holidays. I don’t celebrate them myself, but I can’t deny the atmosphere. Halloween, with kids everywhere. Thanksgiving, massive in New York. Then the Christmas season, with its films, its smells, its food. Cinnamon, baked goods, warmth. Fall is about getting cozy. It’s about preparing, consciously or not, for winter.

And then winter arrives.

One of my favorite childhood memories is hearing on the radio that a blizzard had shut everything down. Schools closed for days. Travel discouraged. The world paused. I remember the feeling of going back to bed, diving under the blanket, watching the snow fall outside. There was a kind of collective stillness. Everyone was home at the same time, in the middle of the week, which almost never happened.

Winter meant snowball fights with family and friends. Building snowmen. Coming back inside after hours in the cold to drink something hot, cinnamon-heavy or just a simple hot chocolate. Winter also meant shorter days, which I’ve always loved. There’s something honest about darkness arriving early. It forces you inward, and you simply sleep better. At least I do.

Now that I live in a coastal town, winter has taken on a different form. The place empties out. It becomes a ghost town. Only a few locals remain. I can walk through the streets, along the beach, into the forests, and not see anyone. Not hear anyone. Just space, and peace.

Fall here is also the perfect time for mushroom picking. There’s something deeply satisfying about finding your own food, bringing it home, cooking it. I don’t do it as often as I used to, but when I do, it reconnects me to something older than all of this.

Winter also brings unpredictability. Storms, floods, strong winds, snow.

I’ve always been fascinated by storms. There’s something humbling about them. They remind you how small you are without humiliating you. Just placing you back in proportion.

And this is where my relationship with winter becomes more than just aesthetic.

Winter, to me, is supposed to be a time of slowing down. A form of hibernation. Not complete inactivity, but a reduction. A softening. A withdrawal from constant output.

But winter under capitalism is the opposite of that.

It’s when everything accelerates. Black Friday. Christmas consumption. New Year’s, January sales. Valentine’s Day. It becomes a concentrated period of economic extraction. A time where people are pushed to spend more, move more, produce more, exactly when their bodies are asking for less.

I don’t adhere to that. I reject it.

Because biologically, intuitively, winter asks something else from us. Even illness patterns reflect that. People don’t just get sick because of viruses. They get sick because they keep pushing at summer pace in a winter body. They ignore the signal to slow down.

Historically, people understood this. They worked through the year, harvested their crops, prepared for winter. Around the end of October, they gathered, celebrated the end of harvest. And then life shifted. Maintenance replaced expansion. Survival replaced growth.

Nature does the same. Animals retreat. Bears hibernate. Bees cluster. Even plants withdraw into themselves. Winter is not death. It’s conservation.

I sometimes imagine a different life. A cabin. A cycle where summer is for harvesting, fall for preparing, winter for resting. Wood gathered. Food stored. Time spent simply maintaining what’s already there.

Life, at its core, is that simple. But systems built on constant expansion don’t allow simplicity to survive.

Winter, for me, is also about people. Not crowds, but closeness. Seeing friends, family. Sitting together, drinking tea, sharing time without urgency. There’s a different quality to connection in winter. It’s slower, deeper.

Even sports feel different. The air, the light, the coziness of it all. Everything sharpens.

And if I’m honest, part of why I love winter is personal. I’m introverted. I need that inward space. But it’s also something else. A fatigue with what humanity has become. The constant noise, the endless movement, the destruction of everything around us.

Winter feels like a counterforce.

It slows us down whether we like it or not. A storm doesn’t ask for permission. A blizzard doesn’t negotiate. When it hits, everything stops. And in that moment, we’re all equal. No one is above it.

There’s something powerful in that.

To me, winter restores balance. It interrupts the illusion that we can operate at maximum intensity all year long. The shortening of days, the stretching of nights, the way time itself feels heavier, slower, none of that is accidental. It’s a form of design.

Fighting that rhythm has consequences. You see it in people who try to live winter like summer. They burn out. They get anxious. They get sick.

I haven’t had a cold in years. That’s not just because I’m active or because of my diet, though those matter. It’s because I try, as much as possible, to align with that rhythm. To accept that winter is not the time to push.

Winter is about gathering. With nature, with people, with yourself. It’s not about peak productivity. It’s not about consumption. It’s not about proving anything.

It’s about remembering.

And maybe that’s why I love it so much. Because despite everything, despite the systems we’ve built to override it, winter still imposes itself. It reminds us, quietly or violently, that we are not in control of everything.

That there is a rhythm beyond us.

And that we’d probably be better off listening to it.

Thanks for reading.

Teekay.

Neighbors of Lacanau Océan

February 2, 2026 — 1 Comment

Small worlds at the edge of the ocean.

Living near the ocean and surrounded by forest comes with a quiet gift: the constant presence of small, living worlds brushing past my own.

In 2024, my wife and I moved to Lacanau Océan almost by accident and immediately fell in love with the area, especially during the off season, when silence settles in. Beyond the calm and the sense of space, what stays with me most is the wildlife I encounter on my daily walks near the ocean and through the forest.

Below is a little gallery of animals I come across regularly, depending on the season. I’m probably forgetting some.

A list of land animals

Wild boars
Roe deer
Rabbits
Hedgehogs
Red foxes
Bats
Red squirrels
Frogs
Moles
Butterflies
Dragonflies
Snails
Lizards
Ducks
Cats of course
and dogs

And then a bunch of birds too

Kentish plover (the funniest birds itw)
Ravens (my faves)
Blackbirds
White storks (lucky if you see them, but they’re around)
Tawny owls (the shy ones)
Common buzzards
Common kestrels
Eurasian magpie
Eurasian siskin
Seagulls
Cranes

Pretty awesome, right?

Thank you for stopping by.

Teekay

The intelligence of slow water

January 27, 2026 — Leave a comment

And how unlikely engineers are fixing what we broke.

Somewhere between dams, drains and forgotten beaver ponds, we taught water to behave unnaturally.

For centuries, rivers weren’t linear channels cutting through land. They were living systems with multiple rhythms. They had (some still do) a normal bed, a medium bed and a larger floodplain. During certain periods, rivers would overflow into nearby fields and forests, depositing sediments, organic matter and nutrients. They would slow down, spread out, feed themselves and recharge the surrounding soils before returning to their usual course. Water lingered. Land absorbed it like a sponge. Life depended on that slowness.

Modern (human) engineering broke this balance. To protect infrastructure, agriculture and urban areas, rivers were straightened, dredged and confined between embankments. Their wider beds were erased. This caused for river channels to deepen because the straighter a river is, the faster it goes, and the faster it goes, the more it digs under itself, thus lowering its bed. This phenom’ had two immediate consequences. First, rivers stopped feeding themselves. Cut off from floodplains, they no longer collect organic matter, sediments and nutrients that once sustained aquatic ecosystems. Second, and more critically, they stopped feeding the land around them. The earth lost its role as a sponge.

When soils are regularly rehydrated by slow, spreading water, they remain loose, alive and porous. Microorganisms thrive. Roots penetrate deeply. Organic matter accumulates.

When this process is interrupted, soils dry out and compact. They become stiff and tight. Rain no longer infiltrates. It slides across the surface, picking up speed, eroding topsoil and rushing straight into rivers, then quickly into the ocean. Water is no longer stored in landscapes but evacuated as quickly as possible. What we call floods and droughts are often two sides of the same engineered mistake.

This acceleration of water is a massive stress on the planet. Freshwater ecosystems collapse. Groundwater reserves fail to recharge. Agricultural soils lose fertility. Coastal zones receive sudden, polluted surges of freshwater and sediments. The problem is not a lack of rain but a lack of time. Water is not allowed to stay.

Nature, left to itself, mirrors its creator’s perfection. So naturally, solutions do exist, and one of the most powerful allies in restoring hydrological balance is none other than the beaver.

Often dismissed as a nuisance or a pest, the beaver is in fact a master engineer, working in harmony with natural laws rather than against them. By building “dams”, beavers slow water down. They raise river levels back toward their natural height. They reconnect streams with floodplains. They recreate the layered beds that humans spent centuries destroying, and still are.

Beaver dams create chains of small wetlands and ponds, true oases across landscapes. These wetlands filter water by trapping sediments and pollutants. They store water during wet periods and release it slowly during dry ones, reducing both floods and droughts. They soften the surrounding soils, allowing water to infiltrate deeply and recharge aquifers. Land regains its sponge-like function.

The ecological benefits are extraordinary. Beaver wetlands provide habitat for fish, amphibians, aquatic insects, birds and mammals. Frogs, salamanders, dragonflies, trout, ducks and herons all thrive in these environments. Biodiversity increases not despite the dams but because of them. Even forests benefit, as higher groundwater levels support healthier trees and reduce vulnerability to fires.

Beavers don’t build for profit, efficiency or short-term control. They build for stability. Their work reverses, piece by piece, the damage caused by rigid, fast and extractive water management systems, built by us.

Where humans forced rivers to behave like drains, beavers restore them as living systems.

Reintroducing and protecting beavers is not a romantic gesture or a return to some imagined past. It’s a practical, science-backed response to centuries of bad engineering. Beavers show that the solution to water crises is not always more concrete, deeper channels or faster flows. Sometimes, the solution is to slow down, raise water back into the land and let ecosystems do what they have always done best.

If we’re serious about restoring soils, securing water and easing the planetary stress we created, we should stop fighting nature’s intelligence and start learning from it.

In that lesson, the beaver is the blueprint.

Food for thought.

Thank you for stopping by.

Teekay

The hefty cost of convenience in an artificial world

January 3, 2026 — Leave a comment

AI tools have made an already bad situation worse.

Every time you touch an AI tool, whether you’re making images or words, you’re feeding a machine that drinks real water and eats real power. Not in theory. Literally. There’s no harmless cloud floating above us. There are data centers on the ground, towers pulling heat out, plants burning fuel, all so content can come out faster while the bill gets paid somewhere else.

Think of it this way. One text request to a large AI model uses roughly the same amount of water as a few mouthfuls from a soda can. That sounds small until you remember these systems handle billions of requests a day! At that scale, we’re not talking about sips. We’re talking about entire truckloads of bottled drinks being poured straight down the drain, every single day, just to keep servers cool.

The estimated CO2 emissions from training common NLP models, compared to familiar consumption (University of Massachusetts, 2019)

Generating a single AI image uses several times more energy than a text request. One article with five or six AI images might be using the equivalent electricity of leaving a laptop running for hours. Multiply that by thousands of articles, social posts, newsletters and ads, and suddenly it’s not trivial at all.

Zoom out a little more and the picture gets uglier. AI-related data centers are already using as much electricity as mid-sized cities. Estimates put global AI power demand on track to rival places like San Francisco or Boston within a few years. That’s millions of homes worth of electricity being burned so companies can automate writing, art and video at scale. AI doesn’t just steal jobs, it steals our resources.

Artificial Intelligence Growth Linked to 80 Million Tonnes of Carbon Emissions in 2025

Now stack dozens of these facilities across drought-prone states and you start to see why people are angry.

And they are angry.

Lately, I’ve seen organizers in Arizona, Pennsylvania and Georgia mobilize against new data center construction. Nobody wants these things in their communities. They strain power grids, drain water supplies and mostly benefit companies that don’t live there (don’t they always?). Luckily, these fights seem to be working. Projects are being delayed, while others are being stopped altogether. We can and will win against these tech oligarchs, but first, we need to be smart about our usage.

This is why it’s so frustrating to see articles about resistance, climate justice or helping nature paired with AI-written images. You can’t talk about fighting extraction while actively participating in it. You can’t warn about corporate overreach while relying on the most opaque, resource-hungry tech industry on the planet.

And it’s not just images. AI-written articles, AI-edited videos, AI voiceovers, all of it runs on the same infrastructure. Longer outputs mean more compute. Videos are especially brutal, far more than text or AI generated images. That one slick AI video you just posted (or liked) could represent the electricity use of a household for days. Yes, dayzz!

The worst part is how little transparency there is. AI companies won’t clearly say how much water or energy a specific model or request uses. Communities are asked to trust them, just like users are. Meanwhile the meters keep spinning.

Just to be clear, I’m not saying we need to go off-grid or stop using technology entirely, but we should start making conscious choices. Take your own photos. Use art made by real people. Scan a drawing, even a bad one. Use stock photos from photographers who actually went outside and did the work. Write things yourself or don’t write at all!

If you’re serious about resistance, about protecting nature, about fighting back against corporate power, your tools matter. Using AI by default, especially for images and media, actively undermines your message. People feel that contradiction, even if they don’t always have the numbers to explain it.

Food for thought.

Thank you for stopping by.

Teekay.

Water speaks in ways we ignore

August 11, 2025 — Leave a comment

A memory, a teacher, a traveler from space.

Once upon a time, exactly 4.5 billion years ago, Earth was a violent place.

There were no oceans. No rivers, no rain, no life. Just a molten ball of fire and gas, spinning restlessly in space.

And then it came. Not as a storm or a miracle, but as dust, rock, and ice, hurtling through space and crashing into this young planet during what scientists now call the Late Heavy Bombardment.

Over millions of years, icy asteroids and meteorites may have delivered what Earth itself couldn’t produce on its own: water. Drop by drop, this alien substance transformed our planet, cooling its surface, filling its craters, and laying the foundation for every living thing that would ever exist.

In other words, the water in your glass, in your blood, in your tears, may not be from Earth.

This is a common theory among scientists, but how do they back it up?

Well, simply put, traces of deuterium (a form of hydrogen) in Earth’s water match those found in carbon-rich meteorites, not in Earth’s original atmosphere. In other words, water could well be extraterrestrial and we’re walking oceans, born of stardust and comets.

Pretty cool.

“A water molecule is made up of one atom of oxygen and two of hydrogen. Hydrogen was created in the Big Bang, and oxygen in the cores of stars more massive than the Sun. Enormous amounts of water, in gaseous form, exist in the vast stellar nurseries of our galaxy.” – NASA

All that being said, new discoveries have challenged that theory. Science doesn’t care about romance and poetry..

But that’s only the beginning of the story.

Water is alive in ways we’re still discovering

Science has always viewed water as simple H₂O. But the more we look, the more mysterious it becomes.

Water doesn’t just hydrate, it reacts. It listens, and it may even remember!

Case in point, when scientists drill into glaciers in Antarctica or Greenland, they’re not just pulling out ice. They’re pulling out history. Inside those frozen cores are bubbles of ancient air, particles of volcanoes and wildfires, records of rainfall, drought, and dust storms, all preserved in perfect detail. These layers tell us the climate story of Earth going back hundreds of thousands of years.

So yeah, water stores information. It has a memory. It IS a memory, not metaphorically but quite literally.

But what if water also stores something more subtle?

Can water feel ? Like, does it have feelings?

The late Dr. Masaru Emoto, a Japanese researcher, believed it did. In his famous (and controversial) experiments, he exposed water to different words, prayers, music, and intentions, then froze it and photographed the crystals that formed.

On one hand, water blessed with words like “love” or “gratitude” formed stunning, symmetrical snowflake-like shapes. On the other, water exposed to hate, anger, or pollution formed distorted, chaotic patterns.

His work was dismissed by many in the scientific community, as they do. But for others, it cracked open a door. A possibility that consciousness and water might be connected in ways we don’t yet understand.

The mystery of memory in water

In 2009, Luc Montagnier, the Nobel Prize–winning virologist who co-discovered HIV, published a paper suggesting that highly diluted DNA in water emits electromagnetic signals, and that water retains this information even when the DNA is gone.

Another researcher and Swiss chemist, Louis Rey, studied water’s “memory” through thermoluminescence and noticed changes depending on what the water had previously been exposed to.

These findings are controversial, but they echo something ancient cultures have always known:

That water is not just a substance, it’s a carrier. A messenger. A mirror.

Water in religion & spirituality

Across every tradition and belief system, water is sacred.

• In Islam, it is said in the Qur’an: “We made from water every living thing” (21:30). Before drinking or washing, Muslims say “Bismillah”, or In the name of God, inviting His name to bless the water. Then there is the water of Zamzam, a sacred well in Mecca, believed to have sprung miraculously for Hagar and her son Ishmael in the desert. This water is revered for its purity and spiritual significance, and pilgrims often drink it during Hajj and Umrah, and take it home as a cherished gift.

• In Christianity, water baptizes, purifies, rebirths.

• In Buddhism and Taoism, water is a symbol of humility and transformation. It yields but wears down mountains.

• And Bruce Lee, blending martial arts with Eastern philosophy, famously said:

“Be like water, my friend.”

Meaning: stay flexible, formless, adaptive, like the element that takes the shape of whatever holds it, and yet remains itself.

Water teaches us to flow, to remember, and to release.

Our bodies remember too

Our body is made up of about 60% water. Our brain? Closer to 75%.

We are, quite literally, a walking river. Every cell depends on water, not just to survive, but to communicate, to regenerate, to feel.

Our emotions, hormones, sleep, focus, creativity, they all ride on the flow of water inside us.

And yet, for something so vital, we’ve forgotten how rare it is.

Water is scarce and under threat

Earth may be covered in water, but only 0.007% of it is drinkable and accessible. The rest is locked away in oceans, glaciers, or underground.

Meanwhile, pollution, overconsumption, and climate change are drying up and polluting a resource that our very existence relies on. Every environmental campaign is focused on the pollution of air (which causes 7 million deaths a year), which is great, but most campaigns don’t even touch on the irreversible pollution of water (mostly due to the fashion industry and animal breeding). Why? The air is much easier to clean than our fresh water streams. and yet..

Meanwhile, pollution, overconsumption, and climate change are depleting and contaminating a resource essential to our very survival: water. Most environmental campaigns rightly focus on air pollution, which causes 7 million deaths each year btw, but rarely address the irreversible pollution of our freshwater sources, much of it driven by the fashion industry and industrial animal farming. Why? I mean if anything, air is far easier to clean than our streams, rivers, and aquifers..

• The fashion industry produces 20% of global industrial water pollution. Dyes and synthetic materials poison rivers from Asia to South America.

• The meat industry is one of the biggest consumers and polluters of water. One single beef burger requires over 2,000 liters of water to produce. But that’s not it: Waste from livestock contaminates rivers and groundwater. Read about the Green Tide, aka Killer Slime or green algae, a magic seaweed that can kill you in SECONDS, another scandal brushed under the rug because a certain lobby is too powerful to let it be mediatized.

Food production accounts for over a quarter (26%) of global greenhouse gas emissions. 18% of those are due to livestock production. – Stanford

• Plastic and pesticides enter our lakes and oceans at alarming rates. Microplastics have now been found in rainwater and even in unborn babies.

By 2030, the United Nations warns that 40% of people could face severe water scarcity if we don’t act.

Water is strong. It’s self-purifying, patient, ancient. But even it has limits.

A call to return to reverence

We live in a world where water comes from a tap, which is why we forget how sacred it is. We wear clothes made in countries we’ll never visit, eat food raised on land we’ll never see, throw away plastics that outlive us by centuries, and we don’t see the water trails behind them.

But now we know better.

We know that water is more than H₂O. It holds the blueprint of life and the story of our planet. It listens. It reflects us.

So what can we do?

• Plant trees.

• Eat more plants and less dead flesh.

• Repair our clothes.

• Use less plastic and ban single use plastics.

• Speak blessings into our glass.

• Treat water like the rare, cosmic treasure that it is.

Because every drop of water you drink has seen stars. It’s been ice. It’s been vapor. It’s fallen as rain, flowed through rivers, and run through the veins of everything that has ever lived.

And maybe, just maybe, when you speak to it, it remembers you too.

Thanks for reading.

Tee.

Reasons why we don’t eat honey

May 12, 2025 — 1 Comment

Besides the fact that we don’t “need” to.

Honey comes from bees. Bees are tiny creatures who play a huge role in keeping our planet alive and healthy, I’ll explain how.

Bees are born in beehives, where they grow up, work together, and take care of each other. While most people think bees are just busy flying around, they’re not! They actually have specific “jobs”, or tasks if you will. In fact, each bee has a specific role: some clean the hive, some feed the baby bees, and others go out to find food. Basically, they’re like us, except more advanced, because they don’t pollute, fight over nonsense and hate each other for no reason.

Bees are also pollinators.

When bees buzz from one flower to the next, they’re doing something extremely important known as pollination. Here’s how it works: As bees collect nectar for making honey, they carry pollen from flower to flower. This simple act helps plants grow fruits, veggies, seeds, and even more flowers. Without bees doing their thing, a lot of the food we rely on wouldn’t exist.

Let that sink in for a second.

Case in point, 75% of the food we eat depends on pollinators like bees (WEF). 75 freakin’ percent! Apples, strawberries, cucumbers, almonds, and even coffee all need pollination. So, losing bees would mean most of these foods would disappear, or become extremely rare and expensive.

Besides, pollinators also help plants that grow in the wild. These plants give food and shelter to animals and help keep the air clean. So, pollinators help whole ecosystems survive, not just farms and gardens.

While bees are the most famous pollinators, they’re not the only ones. Butterflies, hummingbirds, bats, moths, beetles, and even some types of ants and wasps also help pollinate plants. However, bees are the most effective because they focus their energy on flowers and carry lots of pollen.

This year (2025), we’ve had the worst honeybee loss in recorded history in the US. In fact, 80% of honeybees died suddenly. We still “don’t know” why (pesticides, it’s pesticides).

So, why don’t we eat honey? Simple: bees make honey to feed themselves and keep their hive alive, especially through the winter. When humans harvest honey, they’re taking away the bees’ own food (and heat) source. To make up for it, beekeepers sometimes replace the honey with sugar water, but that doesn’t give bees the nutrients they need to stay healthy. In fact, just like in humans, too much sugar can weaken their immune systems and make them more vulnerable to disease.

Worse still, to harvest honey, beekeepers often use smoke or chemical fumes to force bees out of their hives. This disorients them, causing stress, panic, and confusion, sometimes even leading them to get lost or die as they flee.

Even though it might not seem harmful at first, stealing honey puts a lot of pressure on bee colonies. It is in fact one of the reasons we’ve seen millions of bees die in recent years.

This is why many vegans consider honey as part of animal exploitation. The more we take from bees and damage their homes, the fewer bees we have, which in turn puts entire ecosystems, and our own food systems, at risk. In numbers, honeybees pollinate a worth of 15 billion dollars of crops in the US only, yearly.

If bees disappear, many plants won’t be pollinated. This means fewer fruits, vegetables, and nuts. Animal species that eat these plants will struggle, and so will the animals that eat them. It’s a chain reaction that could cause entire ecosystems to collapse. Eventually, the extermination of bees would entail food shortages even for us, humans, and thus our death as well.

Humans have long seen themselves as sitting at the top of the pyramid, a concept known as speciesism, but in reality, we’re just one part of a vast, interconnected family of living, sentient beings.

Fascinating facts about bees

Here’s where things get interesting: Plants, being rooted in the ground, carry a small negative electric charge. Interestingly, this charge increases the higher up the plant you go, creating an electric field around the flower itself.

Bees, in contrast, acquire a positive charge during flight due to friction with the air, which causes them to lose electrons. So, as a bee approaches a flower, the opposing electric fields of the bee and the plant begin to interact. This interaction subtly changes the flower’s natural vibrations or signals, imperceptible to humans, but detectable to bees.

When the bee lands on the flower, the positive charge from the bee and the negative charge of the flower neutralize each other almost instantly. This leads to two remarkable outcomes:

The negatively charged pollen from the flower is attracted to and effectively “jumps” onto the positively charged bee;
The flower’s electric field is altered, signaling to other approaching bees that it has already been visited. This change communicates that the flower likely has no nectar left, prompting bees to move on and return later. Mindblowing!

So, flowers use electric fields not just to attract pollinators, but also to communicate whether they still have nectar. They have their own language of electricity, completely imperceptible to us.

Other interesting facts about bees: They can also recognize human faces, communicate with each other through a little dance, and even show signs of emotion. Scientists also suggest bees can count and they might even dream.

What can we do to protect the bees and our soils?

Ban pesticides.

Plant flowers that bees love, like lavender, sunflowers and wildflowers.

Replace honey with the million other alternatives in existence: maple syrup, agave nectar, date syrup, molasses, and even fruit-based syrups work great. Why participate in the extinction of a whole species (and many other would follow suite) when you can avoid it?

Bees may be small, but they are mighty. Taking care of them is not just about saving one species, it’s about saving the world we all share.

Thank you for stopping by. This post was inspired by a conversation with my wife ❤

Peace!

Teekay

WATCH: 31 Documentaries that will change your perception of food (with trailers)

December 23, 2024 — 1 Comment

You are what you eat.

An Updated Guide to Must-Watch Documentaries on Health, the Environment, and Animal Welfare

A few years ago, I compiled a list of powerful documentaries that opened eyes and sparked conversations about the connections between our diets, personal health, the planet, and animal welfare. Since then, new documentaries have emerged, offering fresh perspectives and deeper insights into these critical topics.

This updated list features 31 must-watch documentaries that will inspire you to rethink your choices, understand the broader impact of what’s on your plate, and consider the powerful role food plays in shaping our world.

Whether you’re passionate about health, sustainability, or ethics, these films are a compelling call to action, and a perfect way to kickstart meaningful change.

You Are What You Eat: The Twin Experiment (2024)
A twin-focused dietary experiment exploring the effects of different eating habits on health.
Notable Figures: None known.

Earthlings (2005)
A groundbreaking documentary examining humanity’s reliance on animals for food, clothing, and entertainment.
Notable Figures: Narrated by Joaquin Phoenix.

Dominion (2018)
Exposing the darker side of animal agriculture through hidden-camera footage.
Notable Figures: Narrated by Joaquin Phoenix, Rooney Mara, and Sia.

Forks Over Knives (2011)
A case for adopting a plant-based diet to combat chronic diseases.
Notable Figures: Dr. T. Colin Campbell, Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn.

What the Health (2017)
Investigating the link between diet, disease, and corporate influence in health organizations.
Notable Figures: Kip Andersen, Keegan Kuhn.

Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret (2014)
Revealing the environmental impact of animal agriculture.
Notable Figures: Directed by Kip Andersen.

Seaspiracy (2022)
A critique of the fishing industry’s devastating impact on marine ecosystems.
Notable Figures: Directed by Ali Tabrizi and Kip Andersen

Christpiracy (2024)
Examining the intersection of religion and ethical food choices.
Notable Figures: Directed by Kip Andersen and Kameron Waters.

The Game Changers (2018)
Debunking myths about plant-based diets and athletic performance.
Notable Figures: Produced by James Cameron, Arnold Schwarzenegger.

I Could Never Go Vegan (2024)
Addressing common excuses and challenges against veganism.
Notable Figures: None known.

Vegucated (2011)
Following three people as they attempt to adopt a vegan lifestyle.
Notable Figures: Directed by Marisa Miller Wolfson.

Milked (2021)
A deep dive into the dairy industry and its global implications.
Notable Figures: Created by Chris Huriwai.

Pignorant (2024)
Exploring the psychology behind ignoring the ethics of animal consumption.
Notable Figures: Created Joey Carbstrong.

Eating Animals (2018)
An exposé of industrial farming and its impact on food systems.
Notable Figures: Based on Jonathan Safran Foer’s book, narrated by Natalie Portman

Carnage: Swallowing the Past (2017)
A satirical take on a future where veganism is the norm and meat-eating is taboo.
Notable Figures: Directed by Simon Amstell.

The Smell of Money (2022)
Investigating the environmental racism tied to industrial pig farming.
Notable Figures: Guess appearance: Cory Booker

The End of Meat (2017)
Imagining a world where meat consumption has ended.
Notable Figures: Directed by Marc Pierschel.

The Invisible Vegan (2019)
A focus on the often-overlooked contributions of Black communities to veganism.
Notable Figures: Directed by Jasmine Leyva, guest appearance by John Salley

Mission Blue (2014)
Chronicling Dr. Sylvia Earle’s mission to protect ocean habitats.
Notable Figures: Featuring Sylvia Earle.

Eating Our Way to Extinction
Exploring how our diets are destroying ecosystems and biodiversity.
Notable Figures: Narrated by Kate Winslet.

Eating You Alive (2018)
Highlighting the health benefits of a whole-food, plant-based diet.
Notable Figures: Featuring Samuel L. Jackson, James Cameron.

H.O.P.E. What You Eat Matters (2018)
Demonstrating the health, environmental, and ethical reasons for eating consciously.
Notable Figures: Guests; Jane Goodall, Vandana Shiva

Food Choices (2016)
A comprehensive look at how dietary choices impact health and the planet.
Notable Figures: Directed by Michal Siewierski.

Peaceable Kingdom: The Journey Home (2009)
Farmers recount their journeys from animal agriculture to veganism.
Notable Figures: Directed by Jenny Stein.

Simply Raw: Reversing Diabetes in 30 Days (2009)
Following individuals reversing diabetes through a raw vegan diet.
Notable Figures: Featuring Gabriel Cousens.

The Cove (2009)
Unveiling the horrors of dolphin hunting in Japan.
Notable Figures: Featuring Ric O’Barry.

Speciesism: The Movie (2013)
Challenging societal norms about animal exploitation.
Notable Figures: Directed by Mark Devries.

73 Cows (2018)
The journey of a farmer transitioning from cattle farming to sustainable living.
Notable Figures: Directed by Alex Lockwood.

Live and Let Live (2013)
Examining ethical veganism and its implications.
Notable Figures: Directed by Marc Pierschel.

Land of Hope and Glory (2017)
An exposé on UK factory farming practices.
Notable Figures: Directed by Ed Winters.

Rowdy Girl (2023)
A former cattle rancher turns her farm into an animal sanctuary.
Notable Figures: Featuring Renee King-Sonnen.

Why We Love Nature but Keep Destroying It

July 24, 2024 — 1 Comment

How can we do better, collectively?

My self-professed love for nature is no secret to my readers.

Being close to nature is and has always been my thing.

Nature is wondrous, full of beauty and peace.

Hiking photo by Teekay Rezeau-Merah — Hiking photo by author Teekay Rezeau-Merah

The reason I became a vegan minimalist was mainly to protect it and its inhabitants.

But doing so opened my eyes on a fascinating paradox, especially in the vegan and vanlife communities; a paradox I ponder upon on a daily basis.

Spending more time in the great outdoors allowed me to come to a poignant realization: The very nature that we, avid nature enthusiasts and animal lovers, hold dear to our hearts, is the very same nature we often unwittingly damage with our bad habits.

How can we enjoy something so much while simultaneously participate in its destruction?

Teekay @teekayrezeaumerah — Please don’t leave toilet paper in nature (photo by author)

Well, here’s where my thinking is at the moment.

Reasoning

First of all, I want to make something clear: As pragmatic as I can be, my personal belief is that human beings are born good.

However, human beings are also amazing at compartmentalizing.

meaning of compatmentalize by Teekay Rezeau-Merah — Screenshot by author

A fitting illustration of my point is that of individuals who profess to be staunch advocates for human rights, yet they contradictorily sport Nike shoes, H&M dresses and Zara pants.

Note: If you don’t know what I’m hinting at, read this.

The same can be said about vegans who consume palm oil, or vanlifers who consume animal products (that destroy the very nature we want to be surrounded by).

Now look, I always say life is all about balance, and I believe it is, but sometimes — often times — rocking something ethically sourced won’t hurt you in any way, shape or form. Perhaps you’ll pay more for it, but you don’t have to if you buy second hand.

This applies to almost all consumables.

So the first takeaway from this piece is to think twice before your next purchases. Always consider the added value of what you buy, its environmental impact and whether there are other alternatives.

That’s one way to tackle this paradox.

Another reason we engage in actions that cause harm to nature is our toxic sense of entitlement, or deservingness.

This manifests itself in different forms: Arrogance, greed, boastfulness or in some cases, negative narcissism.

Some of us behave as if the world owes us. This sense of entitlement emanates from a lack of self-awareness and gratitude, which itself is the result of a Godless, non-religious and non-spiritual society.

Many people believe, wholeheartedly and arrogantly, that everything they have was owed to them.

Hustle culture prescribes “hard work and determination” as the ultimate solution for success, often discarding external factors that also contribute to one’s accomplishments.

Unfortunately, such attitude blinds us from seeing the bigger picture: That none of what we have, none of what we achieve is truly ours, and that it can be taken away from us at any time. It will be when we die.

More humility would do us all a world of good, and without it, we will continue indulging in things that harm us and everything we love.

When the last tree has been cut down, the last fish caught, the last river poisoned, only then will we realize that one cannot eat money. — Native American saying

The third reason behind this great paradox is our lack of concern for the future.

In other words, selfishness.

Social Media may have exasperated this, but many people believe they MUST prioritize their own pleasures and conveniences over the well-being of the environment and future generations.

It’s sickening when you think about it.

But I don’t blame us, not entirely. If anything, we were programmed and brought up this way, but it’s time for a change, a big one.

As a matter of fact, we can’t live like we did 30 years ago, times are changing and so should we, evolution and all.

Indeed, our planet can’t sustain our greed and selfishness for too long, and the time to turn things around is now.

I would never advocate for anything radical, life is all about balance once again.

As such, we don’t have to move to self-built huts, nor do we have to wear banana leaves, but it’s our duty to watch what we consume, how we consume it, and what we want to support.

Your dollars are more potent than your vote and your words. So put your money where your mouth is.

How

You see, I often write about boycotting certain products: Palm oil, white sugar, animal products, single use plastic, brands that pollute our water and source their products in Chinese slave camps and Bengali/Indian sweatshops, brands that support wars, so on and so forth.

To take part of this would make the world significantly better. To do so and to raised our collective awareness is as close to perfection as we can get.

That and reversing consumerism. Remember, minimalism (and essentialism) isn’t just an aesthetic, it’s a philosophy.

In 1927, a Boston-born, Harvard educated son of immigrants went to work for Lehman Brothers. His name was Paul Mazur and his interest in the economics of consumption and retailing made him a rising star in the investment banking establishment for more than 50 years.

Mostly he was responsible for manipulating the psyche of the American consumer. — Sherry Truitt

His philosophy in a nutshell:

“We must shift America from a needs, to a desires culture,” He wrote. “People must be trained to desire, to want new things even before the old had been entirely consumed. We must shape a new mentality in America. Man’s desires must overshadow his needs.”

“Man’s desires must overshadow his needs.” That’s a powerful statement, and a scary one.

So you see, as stated above, human beings are born good, but we were led astray for many decades.

Indeed, our actions are often shaped by cultural and societal norms. Unfortunately, said norms favor efficiency and convenience over wellbeing and ethics. They also favor desires over altruism and consumerism over self-awareness.

We all follow patterns and attitudes considered “normal” in our society, hence why we hardly question anything.

With that being said, let’s not forget that we’re still human, and luckily for us, God bestowed upon us reason and logic.

God gave us free will too, so it’s on us to outgrow our biases and harness original thinking.

Final word

All in all, the paradox of enjoying and destroying nature at the same time is a complex and deeply ingrained issue.

It’s not just about individual behavior, it’s rooted in our cultural, political, and economic systems, making it extremely difficult to shake off.

The one thing I want to leave you with is to question things and at least make sure your actions are aligned with your values, that’s it.

Perhaps some of us have a stronger moral obligation to protect nature, while others don’t. That’s okay, life can’t be perfect and neither can we, but does that mean we should stop trying?

Peace!

Tee.

Teekay Rezeau-Merah

Essays, photography & ideas for a better world

Nature & Climate

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