Some parts of the planet have become unbearable for human life
in 2020 there were million new disasters full of strife
In the next 50 years the planet could have an increase in the fluctuations of weather,
larger than the one it has had in the previous 6.000 years altogether
Drying lands becoming deserts, high tides and sea levels rising, critical water and air qualities, how do we engage with these realities?
An odd correlation takes place – those affected the worst,
have contributed the least in making CO2 emissions burst
The notion of “development” is the conceptual umbrella under which most ecosystemic harm has been done,
under the promise of progress, the era of resource extraction begun,
and after more than a few years the promise is still undone
the categories of First and Third world were installed,
through which very rigid hierarchies were miscalled
and the possibility for other logics was for many years walled
Third World countries would depend on external aid
That’s the game they played
The Third World would become the source for resources
while the First World would create the discourses
making hegemonic certain narratives
giving shape to our everyday realities
telling everyone how the planet is
While some consumed and consumed
others with scarcity were impugned
And now we are left with the risk of human extinction,
Why did we pursue such a contradiction?
Due to the Spell of Neoliberalism,
we live under the illusion of globalism
But having open borders for merchandise
and other sort of commercial ties
that does not imply caring if a person at the other side of the world dies
For whom are we fighting for?
Nation-based Green Certificates such as Carbon Credits often ignore,
the harm done to territories and communities offshore,
Are we including everyone in this fight?
Who are we leaving out of sight?
How is the mainstream climate struggle reproducing neo-colonial hierarchies?
As co-inhabitants of the Global North, what is our co-responsibility
and how does this imply permissibility in some dynamics that perpetuate the current environmental debility?
As these Spells begin to crackle,
we slowly begin to realize that the Climate Emergency as a borderless planetary concern we need to tackle.
When addressing Environmental Intersectionality
Achille Mbembe asks “clean air for whom?”
I ask if it’s for those who are able to consume?
but for those who cannot, is there still any room?
When will we stop pretending the planet is not our common territory?
When will we stop acting towards other humans and species as predatory
Let’s listen to all visions of territorial and communitarian organizations,
from Degrowth to Ubuntu, Sumak Kawsay and Decelerations,
that’s how we can become aware of other forms of life and cosmovisions
That’s maybe how we could avoid deadly divisions
Degrowth implies a radical reduction of the global economy,
as well as a profound transformation in societies towards care, solidarity and autonomy.
A social orientation towards sufficiency –
instead of technological changes or improvements to achieve more efficiency
Sumak Kawsay is a worldview from the Andes mountain range
with its principles of interculturality and plurinationality it’s definitely worth the exchange
Sumak Kawsay defends interrelationality, correspondence and complementarity
A worldview that sets the economy of care as the regularity
and as an element of the Pachamama or Mother Earth, the human community
Regenerative development implies working with the inherent potential of life system in
developing high levels of synergy, symbiosis and collaboration restoring the health and vitality of ecosystems in which there is human participation
and avoiding the use of non-renewable resources in anticipation
Ubuntu is a traditional South African term understood as the belief in a universal link that connects all humanity
and it embraces a deep concept of interrelationality
It translates as “I am because we are” literally
or “humanity towards the others” unconditionally
Not until we embrace a borderless notion of territory
which takes into account the specificities of local communities and also embraces the
principle of planetary interdependence, can we attempt to really transform the course of this
story
Nature is not solely a source for resource extraction
and this shift of values needs our urgent reaction.
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