He surprised us all at home. They cut off our electricity due to non-payment. We thought we did, but we didn’t. Employees’ patience and online payment avoided the inconvenience of non-payers and power outages for several days.
But who will pay the debt we owe to the land we live on? Will someone wait or is there no turning back?
July this year was the hottest month on record, and it is predicted to be the hottest since the dawn of our civilization, unless we break our own record by the end of the year.
And on the 28th of the same month, we exceed all the resources that the Earth is able to consume in a year, exceeding the recovery capacity of the ecosystem by 74%.
The reality hits us and we cannot deny it or avoid it: every year the resources of almost two planets of the Earth are used up. This year we need 1.75 planets to meet the global demand for natural resources. However, not all countries consume the same: countries like Qatar or Luxembourg did so in mid-February; The United States, Canada and the United Arab Emirates did so on March 13.
If everyone lived like the Qataris, we would need 8.2 Earths to cover their exploitation of the ecosystem.
If we tried to do that as Americans, we would need 5.1 countries to cover those requirements.
And yet, there are few of us as countries to emulate in terms of development and progress.
Interestingly, one of the reasons used to say No to Yasunà is that if we don’t extract the oil stored underground, a neighboring country will. Apart from looking for horizontal extraction technology which I don’t know if it exists, personally it seems like a similar reasoning as if everyone is doing it why shouldn’t I.
It is about the model of development we want and our understanding of the planet as a whole. Although the poorest countries are not the ones that exploit natural resources the most, they still suffer the consequences of those that do with their advanced technology.
The month of July this year was the warmest month on record…
The earth does not recognize the borders that we set, nor the points and lines that mark the borders of our countries on maps and globes. In his book 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, Harari argues that for thousands of years Homo sapiens has behaved like a serial ecological killer, now it is turning into a mass ecological killer, and if we continue on this trajectory, we will not only wipe out a large percentage of all living things, but also can weaken the foundations of human civilization. We have a moral, ethical responsibility to think globally, not just locally, and make decisions accordingly.
The urgency and speed that seem to encompass our way of relating to people and the world around us clash with the patience and time required by Earth’s biological processes. Time for us to become people, for trees to become a forest, Time that we almost didn’t burn-
lets pay the environmental debt we maintain with our own spaceship, this beloved earth that stops and protects us. (OR)
Source: Eluniverso
Mario Twitchell is an accomplished author and journalist, known for his insightful and thought-provoking writing on a wide range of topics including general and opinion. He currently works as a writer at 247 news agency, where he has established himself as a respected voice in the industry.
