A-Infos (en) Spaine, CNT, #433: 20 years is nothing... - Elena Martinez (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

It occurred to me to start with this very popular song by Carlos Gardel that says 
that twenty years is nothing. It is to put some music and humor to the next 
lines. ---- Very recently we talked about the collapse as something distant in 
time, however, today, I think I am not mistaken if I affirm that the collapse has 
already begun. We have him in front of our very eyes, perhaps we do not imagine 
it that way, but reality seems stubborn, it is useless for us to keep looking the 
other way as if nothing was happening. ---- "It is not an event, but a process. 
There is no cataclysmic moment that marks the exact second in which the abyss 
opens under our feet, rather a combination of factors act over a more or less 
prolonged period of time and reinforce each other. Rather, the pressing question 
is whether we will be able to navigate this process to reach shores of greater 
freedom and solidarity or whether anomie, social breakdown, will open the doors 
to a new era of darkness, ignorance, tyranny and genocide." points out Miguel 
Ángel Pérez in his book Nuevo sindicalismo.

When they talk to us about progress, sustainable development, technology, science 
as a magic formula, they hide from us the serious eco-social crisis that is 
coming our way. A skyrocketing rise in prices, increasingly depleted public 
services, everything points to increasing social tension and a state incapable of 
resolving social conflicts.

Scientists and ecologists warn of the disappearance of the Murcian, Valencian and 
Almeria orchards, which according to their forecasts will be flooded in the not 
too distant horizon due to the rise in sea level.

Barcelona, La Coruña, Vigo, Gijón, Avilés, the Cádiz coast, the eastern coast, 
the Huelva coast, and the Almería coast will be largely flooded. Some events 
already point in that direction. The Mediterranean coast will be one of the 
hardest hit areas.

At the end of March, the sand from the Tavernes beaches disappeared, leaving the 
foundations of the buildings on the first line exposed. A few months later, the 
beaches of Barcelona, and this past August a thermal blowout took the life of a 
young man at the Medusa Festival in Cullera. But these events of damage and 
adverse atmospheric phenomena are frequent in this area of the Mediterranean 
coast and the forecast is that they will increase.

Within our territory, the Iberian Peninsula, only some inland areas of northern 
Portugal, the Cantabrian area and some areas of the Pyrenees and the 
Pre-Pyrenees, will have conditions for life, according to experts. There will be 
difficulties planting and harvesting food due to being subjected to extreme 
temperatures, adverse weather events, rising sea levels, fires and a lack of 
fresh water.

In just two decades, the earth we inhabit will become more inhospitable, more 
unstable, more difficult. But it will also be the only refuge for life and for 
the survival of our species.

This past February, the report of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate 
Change (IPCC) was forceful in its conclusions: «The effects of climate change are 
intolerable and irreversible. At the current rate of emissions reduction, 
increased temperatures will pose threats to food production, water supplies, 
human health, coastal settlements, national economies, and the survival of much 
of the natural world." And they will be intolerable, because they will affect the 
most vulnerable population, which is also the least responsible for this disaster.

Migrations will be even more protagonists, because the right to a healthy 
environment is a chimera. According to UNHCR data, since 2008, more than 20 
million people have been forced to leave their homes due to weather-related causes.

Returning to the IPCC report, the policies and commitments of the most polluting 
countries predict that global warming over the next two decades will be far 
removed from the goal of not exceeding one and a half degrees. It could reach 
between 2.3ºC and 2.7ºC. A time bomb.

Does anyone expect any results, any effective policy on the part of governments 
and international organizations that at this point remedy this disaster that is 
coming our way? Neither the 2030 Agenda, nor the COP climate summits, nor the 
governments, nor of course the multinationals, are going to do anything beyond 
selling us a green capitalism woven from more social gaps and more fortress 
states. Business is business.

Let's take an example: the electric car. They tell us nothing about the highly 
polluting manufacturing process, nor about its batteries, which are even more so, 
in addition to encouraging neocolonial extractive policies and accentuating 
inequalities. Projects such as the Strategic Plan for Economic Recovery and 
Transformation (PERTE) to promote this "green" market for electric cars, financed 
with public funds, hides a succulent business. Not surprisingly, the automobile 
sector in our country accounts for 11% of GDP and is the second largest car 
producer in the EU.

The management of our forests, in the hands of private companies. Forest 
firefighters working up to 22 hours straight, with minimum wages, without 
adequate material, without training, risking their lives to put out the fires 
that devastate them and when things get ugly we call the UME military.

It is the time of anarchism. It is urgent to create free, autonomous communities, 
build food sovereignty, cooperatives, energy communities, a lot of mutual support 
and collectivize work. Abolish it, I would say, to deal with what really matters: 
life.

Nothing is invested in prevention. Rural abandonment, the establishment of 
macro-farms, everything goes against protecting the flora and fauna species that 
inhabit the territory, or preventing floods, fires and avoiding the advance of 
desertification. Predatory and dominating capitalism.

We could give many more examples, but there is no doubt that funds and resources 
are always allocated in favor of private interests instead of strengthening 
collective means beyond pure marketing. In Health, in education, in 
transportation, in housing, in food, in caring for our environment, in access to 
water, in basic rights.

However, our rulers have not taken long to agree to raise defense budgets by 
increasing military spending to 2% of GDP at the last NATO summit in Madrid. One 
of the most lucrative and most polluting sectors in the world, without taking 
into account what they call collateral damage, the murder of civilian victims.

The planet's resources are finite and the war in Ukraine, although it throws up 
more uncertainty, is still one more. There are ten countries that are currently 
still in conflict in the world.

Faced with this accelerated panorama, it is convenient to take action before 
being on the brink of the abyss, because then everything will be more difficult.

It is the time of anarchism. It is urgent to create free, autonomous communities, 
build food sovereignty, cooperatives, energy communities, a lot of mutual support 
and collectivize work. Abolish it, I would say, to deal with what really matters: 
life.

Our tools and our principles are the ones that best adapt to a situation like the 
one posed to us in the not too distant future.

When they talk to us about progress, sustainable development, technology, science 
as a magic formula, they hide from us the serious eco-social crisis that is 
coming our way. A skyrocketing rise in prices, increasingly depleted public 
services, everything points to increasing social tension and a state incapable of 
resolving social conflicts.

It is time for us to dare to dream, collectively and with determination. We are 
not the only ones. Projects and initiatives of ecovillages, alternative 
communities, collaborative housing, cohausing, etc., which take the leap to build 
a different life project, more or less removed from capitalism, arise.

However, and quoting Vandana Shiva, «the first step for change occurs in our 
heads. While our mind is occupied with dominating and colonizing structures, we 
are giving our silent consent and we are not contributing to building 
alternatives. If we don't change our way of thinking in our daily actions, we 
sustain the system.

https://www.cnt.es/noticias/20-anos-no-es-nada/
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