Doing nothing is the baseline reaction to extreme weather events. The other is sharing losses through relief, and using public funds to repair damaged infrastructure. There is also deliberate decision to modify the threats of extreme weather events. Because systems love shortcuts and dependency, this response is not a priority.
Doing nothing comes with mental and spiritual orientations that surrender to the whims of nature. Every natural event is ascribed to the will of god. Mental calamity affects people who believe in predestination. They believe in a capricious god that sends floods, droughts, locusts and other pests to bully people. Such disasters are seen as ways malevolent gods solicit sacrifices from the gullible.
Supplicants of the anachronistic order surrender easily to the forces of nature. They can be influential, even in a society like Kenya, which professes Christianity, modernity and formal education. This god also sends causeless leaders to destroy the will of the people. These people see leaders – even the ones whose actions, morality and values are incompatible with the divine will – as god-given.
No country can grow under the influence of fatalistism. The Oxford Dictionary defines fatalism as the “belief that all events are predetermined and therefore inevitable.”
The mentality breeds indifference and abets a submissive attitude to events. The fatalistic believe it’s the will of god for floods, earthquakes, droughts, lightning, hurricanes and El Niño to devastate communities. These gods and goddesses torture humanity for sins of omission and commission.
The baseline response undermines possible gains of mitigation, adaption and resilient-building in the face of climate change. When a poorly engineered bridge, road, house and railroad collapses, fatalists are likely to blame it on a malevolent god that wills evil on the innocent.
Such people may lack the capability to do anything, but they need a new consciousness that supports initiative. Such people may not understand democracy, but they need a civil consciousness that accepts the truism that a people get the leaders they deserve.
Leadership is a product of community systems that allow the visionless and the unconscientious to occupy the frontlines. Such people, and their leaders, lack the predisposition to respond practically to the challenges of climate change. Fatalism allows no initiative for a people to influence their destiny.
Then there is the traditional ‘Serikali Saidia’ mentality. This is the predominant response to escalated rains and the subsequent flooding.
Official estimates say 300 people died in the flooding; about 50,000 were displaced, and thousands more are still marooned in climate refugee camps in Kano plains of Kisumu county, and Wang’chieng division of Homa Bay county, Mai Mahiu in Nakuru county and informal settlements in Nairobi.
The victims are waiting for the benevolent to share their plight, or for governments to offset their losses. This is when the ‘Kenyans for Kenyans’ mantra is invoked.
Maai Mathiu flood victims were promised between Sh150,000 to Sh200,000 to help ease their pain. Urban climate refugees in Nairobi were promised Sh10,000 to wipe their tears.
Transport Cabinet Secretary Kipchumba Murkomen claims Sh30 billion is needed to repair destroyed infrastructure. But he is yet to show how the estimate was arrived at.
It’s likely the quotation came from the same engineers who supervise and approve substandard works for personal consideration. The Karen Shopping Centre-Kikuyu road, near the African International University, collapsed about a year after rehabilitation. An engineer forgot to instal culverts in a swampy section of the road.
The Nairobi Express Way is reportedly showing design and engineering defects, three years after commissioning. Taxpayers are being invited to share the costs of these losses and damages.
Climate change (flooding) is blamed, rather than shoddy construction that does not consider resilience to extreme weather conditions.
‘Sharing losses’ with taxpayers was the response during apocalyptic floods of 1961 and 1962. The emergency industry keeps first responders like the Kenya Red Cross in dependency business. Such responses also make governments appear ‘magnanimous’.
Yet the appropriate response, that requires planning, and heavy and quality infrastructural investment, is conveniently overlooked. The tested way of modifying the threats of flooding and droughts is building of dykes and dams for water harvesting and storage for irrigation. The practical response is what right-thinking people need to adapt to climate change.