What Do You Think About the Weather Today?

There was a time when my small talks began with: 

“The weather is nice today, no?” 

I don’t say it so casually anymore. I think I am privileged, so my weather is still “nice.” I can regulate it with fans, heaters, AC, or simply step indoors. But is the weather nice for everyone? 

Back in my childhood I remember that Bangladesh’s summers meant load-shedding. Generators were rare, IPS was a luxury, fans stopped mid-rotation like paused moments. Even then somehow, the heat was tolerable. We used to go outside during the power outages, where the breeze had enough mercy to keep us sane. 

Fast forward to now, even fifteen minutes of not being underneath a fan or AC seems like a punishment during summer. And still, I am among the lucky ones who can still pass the opinions about the weather being okay or not okay.  

Because while I write this, Southeast Asia (Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand) is underwater from catastrophic flooding; parts of Africa and South America are battling droughts; Japan and Sumatra are still recovering from the recent powerful earthquakes; volcanic eruptions shake Indonesia and Russia alongside persistent humanitarian crises like drought in Somalia. Extreme weather isn’t “future tense” anymore. It is the present continuous. 

A recent index developed by the Columbia Climate School with support from the Rockefeller Foundation has unveiled how much countries are exposed to climate risk and how financially prepared they are to prevent, fight or recover from that risk. The result is enraging: the countries that contributed the least to climate breakdown are being hit the hardest and are the least equipped to respond. On top of that, those countries are still paying debts to the wealthier nations most responsible for the climate breakdown. Out of 188 nations, 65 are classified as “red zone”, high-risk and low-resilience and 43 of those are in Africa. And it is not just that they are at risk of flood, droughts and hurricanes, but economically suffocated by debt to the very nations whose industrial emissions destabilized the climate in the first place.  

Mozambique appears in the same “red zone” of the Columbia Climate School index: a country highly exposed to cyclones, coastal flooding, and drought, yet with minimal financial resilience to prepare or recover. The irony is structural: although Mozambique contributes just 0.02% of global CO₂ emissions, it carries over $14 billion in external debt, much of it owed to Western and multilateral lenders. 

The spiral worsened after Cyclone Idai in 2019, one of the strongest storms ever recorded in the Southern Hemisphere. It caused over $3.2 billion in damage, roughly 10% of Mozambique’s GDP at the time, pushing the country to borrow even more to rebuild. As a result, takings billions to restore livelihood leaves Mozambique in debt repayments; money that could have strengthened coastal defences, climate-resilient agriculture, or emergency services. 

Instead of climate adaptation funds, Mozambique ends up funnelling resources into repayments, often to investors and institutions based in the very nations whose industrial emissions drove climate destabilization in the first place.  

Or take Zambia for example, which is at a significant risk for both floods and droughts. The country struggled to repay its debts after the 2008 financial crisis and fell into the trap of a predatory vulture fund which sued the country for failing to repay. Zambia lost millions resulting in poverty and no capital to prevent or mitigate climate impacts.  

This is not misfortune. 

This is design. 

A global resource trap where debt undermines climate preparedness and locks nations into cycles of vulnerability. 

So yes, these days my small talk derails into questions about billionaires and governments extracting resources while communities killed, displaced, drowned, burned, or left hungry. 

Recently I saw a video where Dr. Jason Hickel summarized the paradox: 

The world economy is incredibly productive, there’s incredible technology, massive scale of labor, energy, resources—yet most of humanity still can’t meet basic needs. Why? 

Because our economic operating system rewards extraction, not care; accumulation, not balance; profit, not life. It's ultimately our system of production!  

Call it what it is: Capitalism! (Link to the video) 

So what now: despair? fatalism? Give up and go back to polite small talk about “lovely sunshine”? 

Or is there room to imagine a different forecast? 

Can we picture a future where well-being isn’t a luxury product? Where rivers aren’t sacrificed for quarterly growth? Where flowers are more than decorative; they’re indicators of ecological health? Where birds wake us up instead of notifications? 

A world where work doesn’t demand choosing between dignity and survival. Where development doesn’t mean clearing forests until the monsoons arrive like vengeance. Where “progress” doesn’t equal sacrifice zones! 

Maybe the counter-system is eco-socialism: a political economy centred on ecological balance, community ownership of resources, shorter supply chains, and production aligned with human needs, not shareholder appetite. 

A system where progress is measured in resilience and equity, not GDP. Because capital will not voluntarily slow down if profit is involved. 

So, the work left to us is world-building, imagining an eco-centric future so detailed that it becomes a blueprint, not a fantasy. 

After all, if high-emission nations can design the systems that caused the crisis, then low-emission, climate-resilient nations can design the systems that will get us out of it. 

Like Edward Abbey wrote: 

“When the destruction of a man-made object is called vandalism, but the destruction of something natural is called progress, then we have a problem.” 

So, the next time I catch myself saying, “The weather is nice today,”  

I will pause.  

I will remember that weather is no longer just climate!  

It is justice,  

It is memory, 

It is the measure of our human dignity, 

Our humanity.  

And maybe that question will evolve into something braver: 

Who is the weather nice for? 

And how do we make the answer: everyone? 

Marjuka Chowdhury 

Marjuka is a strategy professional focused on designing people-centred interventions that translate sustainability and inclusion into measurable outcomes.  

A 2025–26 Chevening Scholar, she is currently pursuing an MSc in Global Strategy and Sustainability at the University of Edinburgh Business School. With a professional foundation in Marketing from BUP, Marjuka has cultivated a versatile career across the corporate and development sectors, holding roles in Human Resource Management and Public Sector Engagement at bKash, Swisscontact and Unilever.