Is 2025 the Beginning or the End?

The image on the left shows the aftermath of the earthquake in Tibet and the image on the right depicts the wildfires in California

Within the first week of 2025, we have already witnessed devastating calamities—an earthquake in Tibet with 500 reported aftershocks and wildfires in California, both with minimal chances of containment. The earthquake in Tibet highlights the intersection of colonial harm, where censorship of information and the use of Chinese names instead of Tibetan ones obscure the actual impact. Additionally, constructing mega dams in a highly seismic region on a geological faultline amplifies the risks. Meanwhile, capitalist development designs and inadequate environmental regulations in California have exacerbated the wildfires. The climate crisis has now fully invaded our homes and lives, making urgent action imperative before it becomes unmanageable.

These disasters reflect Mother Nature’s backlash against colonial, capitalist, and heteropatriarchal systems that have long exploited the Earth and its resources. This theme was explored in our book, The Power of the Feminine: Facing Shadow, Evoking Light (2020), where authors from Egypt, Ghana, Exile Tibet, and the United States emphasize dismantling patriarchal and colonial behaviors that have deeply shaped political, economic, and religious paradigms. Colonization has inflicted lasting harm on people of color, indigenous cultures, and natural resources. Indigenous peoples, who have preserved a balanced relationship with Nature while respecting all species, offer vital guidance. The book highlight the need for change: face the human shadow, heal oneself and foster healthier ways of living and relating to ensure a sustainable future for all generations.

Unlike the onset of 2020, marked by the COVID-19 pandemic from which we eventually recovered, 2025 presents a climate emergency with no obvious turning point. To shift this trajectory, we must undergo a profound transformation of human consciousness. We must unite as a global community, embracing the teaching of “oneness of humanity,” as His Holiness the Dalai Lama often emphasizes. On this interconnected planet, one individual’s well-being directly affects another’s. Now is the time for decisive action to replace colonial, capitalist, and patriarchal systems with a conscious, compassionate, and resilient model that prioritizes collective well-being and harmony with Nature.

We have come very far—perhaps too far—where measures of individual and communal success are defined by capitalist gains, material wealth, and colonial power. It is time to redefine success based on inner peace, as His Holiness the Dalai Lama teaches, making it the foundation for outer peace. Human values like warmheartedness, driven by action and environmental ethics, present a viable solution for addressing the interconnected challenges of human, climate, and planetary well-being.

We still have time to make 2025 the turning point in our collective history—when humanity finally learned its lesson, with no turning back. Let 2025 mark the end of our destructive patterns and the beginning of a conscious, compassionate, and united humanity.