Features
Not only water but bush meat too is poisoned
There is a theory in management studies known as Tipping Point Theory and it is that which triggers decisive action. The rate at which illegal mining popularly known as ‘galamsey’ has devastated our arable lands, destroyed our water bodies and is creating health problems in our country has triggered a national movement against it.
This ‘galamsey’ issue has brought with it both a grave and humourous twist to this menace to a section of our society. A typical Akan person cannot do without bush meat in his soup especially in combination with his or her fufu. The animals in the wild drink water from our streams and rivers and so their system becomes poisoned by these polluted water bodies.
Those living in cities like Accra, Kumasi etc. and may feel that the pollution of water bodies may not affect them, they ought to realise that if they eat bush neat, they are at risk of heavy metal poisoning just like the village dwellers close to the poisoned water bodies.
It has become a cultural thing for Ghanaians to travel to attend funerals during week-ends. On their way back home, people buy food items especially bush meat and they have no idea what the animal fed on up to the point it was captured.
Given the rampant destruction of our forest through ‘galamsey’, the likelihood of the animal having been polluted is quite high. On a Sunday after church, having prepared a delicious soup with fufu and enjoying it, hardly would it occur to you that you are poisoning your own self.
Apart from the cancer that can result from eating this apparently healthy but in reality contaminated meat, there is another dangerous aspect for our health implications we need to consider.
Reports indicate that studies have shown that children born by people living in areas where ‘galamsey’ is rife, have deformities of various parts of their bodies. Right from the get go, such children are going to face challenges in life which are not natural but man made. Why should we do this to the future leaders of this country?
The alarming thing about ‘galamsey’ is that apart from the pollution of our water bodies, it also pollutes our farming lands and eventually the food stuffs we purchase from our markets.
A person living in Accra goes to buy food items at say Agbogbloshie market not imagining for an instant that the items are polluted. Over a period of time, the person realises that all is not well with his body and goes to the hospital for a checkup, only to be diagnosed with cancer.
The psychological impact and therefore cost to the individual and the nation as a whole is quite substantial. The shock of learning that you have a health condition that can possibly lead to your demise could be quite devastating and has the potential to change the mood of a person on a permanent basis.
We must urgently make the fight against ‘galamsey’ a national priority so the entire nation benefits in the long run. It must be devoid of political games so everybody will come on board for it to become successful.
Water is a very important natural resource and everything must be done to protect it from being destroyed or becoming extinct.
Climate change is already coming hard against water bodies so the citizenry should not do anything or be allowed to do anything that will exacerbate the already precarious situation.
What I am worried about as an individual is my loss of appetite for bush meat which has come about as a result of the fear of inadvertently poisoning myself by eating bush meat.
By Laud Kissi-Mensah
This year June and part of July, is an enjoyable season for football lovers due to the World Cup which is held every four years. The World Cup is such a huge event and also very prestigious so it is highly competitive.
Countries registered with the Federation of International Football Association, (FIFA) become automatic members. FIFA organises tournaments on the five continents of the world, to enable countries to be selected to play in the World Cup competition.
Governments support their national teams to ensure qualification to the World Cup due to the prestigious nature of the tournament. Certain countries even go to the extent of renting a place of their choice, instead of the accommodation provided by FIFA, to ensure that they win the ultimate crown, as Germany did in the 2014 tournament in Brazil.
Mental strength a requisite for emerging victorious in football matches at such high professional level and everything must be done to endure that players are focused on the matches ahead of them.
There is however, a peculiar situation in this year’s World Cup, where it is being hosted by three countries namely the United States of America, Mexico and Canada and where one of the host countries, is at war with one of the competing countries.
The United States of America, is waging a war against Iran. The US has prevented Iran from staying in the US where they were originally scheduled by FIFA to play their matches. The US using its power as the host country, has refused to let Iran to stay and FIFA has provided a place in Mexico for the Iranian team to stay. They have to spend about five hours to fly to the US and prepare to get ready for their matches, each match day.
They are also forced to leave the US as soon as they finish playing their matches, without resting. Despite this inhumane treatment being forced on them by the USA, the Iranian team is mentally strong and have managed to draw their two matches played.
This is a clear manifestation of mental toughness, resulting from having the right mindset.
Life has a way of often dealing bad cards to a lot of people but it is important that when it happens like that, you look at what you can do with what you have, to still achieve the goals you have set for yourself.
There is a saying that when life throws you a lemon you make lemonade out of it. The barriers confronting you might be great, but it is the attitude you display that makes the difference.
The Iranians have really shown that the right mindset is indeed everything you need to be successful. They looked at their situation and assessed what was not going in their favour and found appropriate steps to address it.
Given the teams Iran was to play, the challenge was indeed huge, given the circumstances they found themselves in, but the right mindset to never give up, did the trick for them.
As human beings, we are always confronted with challenges, right from the day we start to crawl, the day we take our first steps and as we continue to grow into adulthood. Challenges are part of our daily lives and we must therefore condition our minds, that we shall encounter them and so must constantly be innovative in overcoming them, when we encounter them.
We need as a country, to develop a critical thinking skill capabilities in our youth, as an investment in the future fortunes of this country. Developing the right mindset, will enable us overcome every challenge. God bless.
By Laud Kissi-Mensah
Introduction
We live in the most measured era in human history. Every click, heartbeat, transaction, and weather fluctuation is logged. Yet despite this flood of information, our ability to make sound judgments, sustain coherent societies, and solve cross-domain problems seems to be declining. The problem is not a lack of data. It is fragmentation: knowledge has been broken into isolated silos, optimised for speed and specialisation, while the capacity for synthesis—what we call wisdom-has atrophied.
This article examines why fragmentation happened, what it costs, and how to recover integrative understanding.
1. How knowledge fragmented
1.1 The rise of specialisation
The 20th century rewarded depth over breadth. Academic tenure, corporate roles, and professional credentials all favor narrow expertise. A neuroscientist rarely reads economics; an economist rarely reads theology. This division increased precision but eliminated cross-talk. The boundary zones where complex problems live-climate and behaviour, technology and ethics, health and finance—became no-man’s-land.
1.2 The incentive structure of information
Modern media and algorithms reward novelty, speed, and emotional arousal. A 30-second explanation of “3 habits for better focus” outperforms a 2-hour synthesis of attention, neurochemistry, and environment. Platforms optimise for engagement, not understanding. The result is a marketplace where shallow, decontextualised fragments outcompete integrated arguments.
1.3 Technological abundance without integration
Sensors, databases, and AI can generate terabytes of data per day. But data without a model is noise. We have thousands of variables measuring sleep, mood, and productivity, yet no consensus on how they interact causally. The tools for collection outpaced the tools for synthesis.
2. The symptoms of a wisdom deficit
2.1 Personal level
People can recite studies on sleep hygiene but still burn out. They track macros, steps, and heart-rate variability but lack a coherent philosophy of health. Information overload creates decision paralysis, not clarity.
2.2 Organisational level
Companies track 200 KPIs but cannot decide what matters. Dashboards multiply while strategic coherence erodes. Meetings become data dumps rather than sense-making sessions. The organisation knows everything and understands nothing.
2.3 Societal level
Policy is “evidence-based” but fails in practice because it ignores context, history, and second-order effects. Debates devolve into dueling statistics because neither side shares a common framework for interpretation. Public trust erodes when experts contradict each other on narrow points but cannot explain the larger picture.
3. Why data alone does not produce wisdom
3.1 Data lacks context
A number gains meaning only within a causal model. Without a model, data is ambiguous. The same drop in GDP can signal recession, a statistical artifact, or a deliberate degrowth policy. Data tells you what happened; wisdom explains why it matters.
3.2 Wisdom requires time horizons
Data captures moments. Wisdom requires tracking patterns over years and decades. The long feedback loops that reveal whether a policy, habit, or technology is sustainable are invisible in real-time dashboards.
3.3 Wisdom demands integration
Wisdom emerges at the intersection of domains. Understanding burnout requires thermodynamics, psychology, and organizational design. Understanding inflation requires history, political economy, and human psychology. Fragmented knowledge cannot make these connections because the training to do so does not exist.
4. Recovering integrative understanding
4.1 Practice model building
Force yourself to explain one phenomenon using three unrelated fields. Example: explain addiction using neuroscience, economics, and ritual theory. The friction of translation reveals hidden assumptions and creates new insights.
4.2 Return to first principles
Strip away domain jargon and ask: what are the fundamental forces here? Energy, information, incentives, and human nature recur across fields. Recognizing these patterns allows transfer of insight.
4.3 Prioritise slow synthesis
Wisdom cannot be produced on the same cycle as content. Reserve time for reading across domains, for conversation without an agenda, and for writing that connects rather than reports. Long-form thinking is the antidote to fragmentation.
4.4 Design institutions for integration
Universities, companies, and policy bodies need roles whose job is synthesis, not production. Historians in tech firms, systems thinkers in hospitals, philosophers in policy units. Without institutional ownership, integration does not happen.
5. Conclusion
The fragmentation of knowledge was a byproduct of progress. Specialisation gave us depth, technology gave us data, and incentives gave us speed. But without synthesis, these gains become liabilities. We end up data-rich and wisdom-poor: able to measure everything and understand nothing.
Recovering wisdom does not require destroying specialization. It requires building bridges back between silos, rewarding synthesis as a distinct skill, and revaluing slow, integrative thinking. Data tells us what is. Wisdom tells us what to do about it.
If we want to solve the problems that span domains—mental health, climate, inequality, technological disruption—we must rebuild the lost art of connection. The tools are available. What is missing is the intention to use them.
By Robert Ekow Grimond-Thompson
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