Kratom and global warming

In general terms, global warming is the increase in the long-term average temperature of the Earth’s climate. Planet Earth has been going through cycles of warming and cooling for thousands of years, but according to several scientific studies, anthropogenic activities (caused by humans) have accelerated global warming and its consequences on the climate are historically unprecedented. 

During the 20th century and at the beginning of the 21st we have seen the global warming curve accelerate out of expected patterns, and it is extremely likely that the responsibility is predominantly human, especially due to the greenhouse gases that have accompanied industrialization, the exploitation of natural resources and large-scale agricultural activities that respond to the economic interests of a world that has seen its population quadruple since the beginning of the 20th century.

Our global society today numbers almost 8 billion individuals and climate change promises to hit a not inconsiderable portion of these people hard. The most likely scenario, according to studies published by The Economist magazine, if the current pace of political actions to mitigate the imminent global warming is maintained, is that in the year 2100 we will have a planet with an average temperature 2.9°C higher than its pre-industrial levels, and this means the total melting of the Arctic ice cap, the devastation of tropical rainforests such as the Amazon, the advance of desertification in some areas together with the intensification of torrential rains in others, the flooding of several cities with the rise in sea level, the increase in food insecurity, the extinction of thousands of animal and plant species, beyond the direct effects on human health and so many other consequences.

“We can only hope that those who hold political and economic power will begin to act seriously on the issue, because so far they have already lost precious and irreversible time due to their greed.”

With this overview of the situation, one may ask, what has kratom got to do with it? The answer would be rather that the climate change we are witnessing will affect practically everyone and everything we know. The vast majority of the planet’s kratom plantations are located in Indonesia, so let’s remember that this is where the tragedy begins: its capital, Jakarta, is the city suffering the fastest land subsidence process in the world, and its prognosis with global warming is frightening: Jakarta is at sea level and could be the first megacity in the history of human civilization to be flooded by salty ocean waters.

Indonesia is cut by the Equator and its climate is quite warm and rainy, as well as that of other areas to which kratom is well adapted, as the plant needs a lot of water and sunlight for its growth. Rising global temperatures will surely have consequences on the spatial distribution of its plantations, either displacing them or, in the worst case, annihilating them.

No one is safe from the consequences of the radical temperature change we are witnessing. In the past weeks we have seen unusual natural disasters such as torrential floods in Germany, Belgium and China, extreme heat waves in several areas of the northern hemisphere, water shortages in the Middle East and North Africa, and snow in several cities in southern Brazil. Everything is interconnected and it is very likely that we will see more and more intense phenomena. We can only hope that those who hold political and economic power will begin to act seriously on the issue, because so far they have already lost precious and irreversible time due to their greed.