“Climate change will manifest as a series of disasters viewed through phones with footage that gets closer and closer to where you live until you’re the one filming it.”
And that afternoon, my turn had arrived.
On Sunday, 6 July 2025, a serene rain suddenly turned into an experience which has forever changed the way my family and I see the world–the climate crisis has reached our door.
Only a few minutes after one of my neighbors shouting, “Flood is coming! Be ready!” muddy water came in a rush, filling our house to nearly one meter high. The house that my father built four decades ago with what he had left from his wage as a public school teacher, that my mother filled with thousands of pieces of antique furniture, that they cherished and hold so dearly with all the family memories within, had to be taken over by nature that day.
“Oh, dear Lord, please stop the water…” my mother softly pleaded as she wrapped important documents in plastic bags to be rescued to the attic. As we were busy saving important stuff, the water continued to swallow up our sofa, mattresses, refrigerator, and even my cats’ favorite toys. None was left behind.
Floods that we usually only see on our phone and television screens are now happening to us.
The flood that day was historic for the city where I live, Mataram. Situated in Lombok, a small island next to Bali in Indonesia, Mataram is a small city that has seen more and more paddy fields converted to housing complexes in recent years. Developments mushroomed rapidly, leaving less and less space for nature to thrive.
The Indonesian Meteorology, Climatology, and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) reported that, on 6 July 2025, 4.2 billion liters of rainwater inundated the city. More than 34,000 residents—including me and my family—were affected. The local government said that one of the main factors causing the flooding was the unhealthy rivers due to silting and piles of garbage.
July 2025, which should have been a dry season for Indonesia, came with heavy rains in many places across the country. Rains caused flooding in Bali that temporarily paralyzed one of the island’s national roads, while in West Java, extreme weather caused landslides and killed three people. Flooding also affected areas in many other islands across the archipelago including cities in Sumatra and Sulawesi.
Nomad century
“Why are you so obsessed with restoring nature?”
An Indonesian famous scholar asked Iqbal Damanik, Greenpeace Indonesia forest campaigner, in a talk show program at a national TV station last June. Back then, they were discussing the nickel mining activities in Raja Ampat in Southwest Papua. While Iqbal was calling for nature restoration because Raja Ampat is part of the coral triangle and its forests are home to megabiodiversity, the scholar said natural resources must be optimally used for the welfare of the people.
My heart ached hearing that. I really wished I could jump through my TV screen and tell him directly that if we don’t restore nature to its original state, nature will take its course and find its new balance with ways that humans call “disasters.” The welfare he referred to would be meaningless if nature decides to take them back.
Not even once I referred to the flood that engulfed my house as a “natural disaster”. To me, nature never intentionally harms the creatures that inhabit it. Nature simply responds to changes caused by human extractive and destructive activities—such as clearing forests for mining or palm plantations, exploiting the ocean for the fishing industry, and clogging rivers with plastic waste. Humans create disasters for themselves.
The problem, however, is about who actively contributes to the worsening conditions of the environment that cause the disasters and who is consistently affected by them. Oligarchs and capitalists issue mining permits, exploit natural resources and destroy ecosystems, while communities in coastal areas and small islands become the victim of landslides and lose livelihoods. Governments and consumer companies fail to account for the circular economy to reduce plastic waste, while countless people are affected by floods when rivers overflow. Governments perpetuate the practice of coal-fired power plants, local communities suffer from asphyxiation from the dust and toxic air from their waste activities.
The climate crisis is real. Greenpeace Indonesia believes that it has long been ignored by policymakers at all levels—local, national, and global. Individual initiatives like stopping the use of single-use plastics, learning to compost, and public transportation campaigns are incomparable to the rate of damage without concrete action from policymakers. Development planning must incorporate the climate crisis factor. If we remain silent, we will continue to face unpredictable changes—crop failures, forest fires, clean water shortages, droughts during the rainy season, and floods during the dry season.
A few weeks ago, I read a book titled Nomad Century: How Climate Migration Will Reshape Our World by Gaia Vince. The author explains that in recent decades the global migration trend due to the climate crisis has doubled—and will only continue to increase.
Regions that once relied on farming for their livelihoods are now suffering from severe droughts and lack of water sources to sustain life. Coastal areas and small islands are slowly sinking as the Earth’s temperature gets warmer and sea levels rise. In countries with four seasons, every summer becomes the hottest summer that sometimes comes with deadly heat waves. The climate crisis is forcing humanity to move in search of safe homes to continue living.
“We are facing a species emergency. We can survive, but to do so will require a planned and deliberate migration of a kind humanity has never before undertaken. This is the biggest human crisis you’ve never heard of,” she writes.
And the flood I experienced the other day made me think. Will I, sooner or later, be among those forced to migrate because of the climate? Maybe the coastline will reach my house? Or will the soil here no longer have clean water?
Dry season of flooding
We were in the attic, half-drenched. We were tired and still in shock. It was getting late and there was a blackout to prevent casualties. My cats were shaken too, but they tried to find comfort in a pile of clean clothes that we managed to save before the water reached it. Breaking the silence, I told my parents that we had done our best and that we couldn’t fight nature.
“This is the climate crisis,” I said. “Today we’re experiencing a flood, despite the fact that it never happened in the four decades we have lived in this house. And it’s July–the dry season! If the government remains silent, we must start to ‘get used’ to nature’s wrath. Before that happens, we should get angry first at those in power. We must keep reminding them and urging them to pay more attention to the environment.”
Vela Andapita is Beyond Seafood project’s Global Communications Coordinator at Greenpeace Southeast Asia.