[TLDR (too long didn’t read): If you are reading this, chances are it behooves you. This HR Reader alerts us about where dispossession, extraction and violence will take us without a burst in global solidarity and activism on planetary health. For a quick overview, just read the bolded text]. Traducir/traduire los/les Readers; usar/utiliser deepl.com
1. Modernity has placed humanity above and separate from nature when it is clearly part of nature. But be realistic:
- No one will voluntarily and spontaneously revise their consumption habits if this also leads to less comfort.
- No industrialist will adapt his production to environmental requirements if this limits his profit possibilities.
- We are not yet seeing equal responsibility —historical emitters still owe an enormous climate debt –and they still control the economic system. (Action Contre la Faim)
2. What this tells us is that it is impossible to solve the environmental problem without focusing on its social and political dimensions. Take just one example of many: While too much attention is paid to small individual contributions (not using plastic bottles and straws, not travelling by plane…), the enormous contribution of the military to the destruction of our environment can no longer be ignored; it must be brought to the forefront. (Francine Mestrum)
3. Furthermore, developing countries are left out of the production chains for low carbon technologies (LCT). They struggle to afford to import these technologies and have little chance at building capabilities to produce and export their own low carbon technologies. Under these circumstances, the developing world could be locked–out of the climate transition in a manner that could (and probably will) lock–in a new structure of global inequality –more so since private finance has proven to deepen inequality. (Science)
And then there is extractivism…
More reality soundbites
4. The use of the concept of ‘Capitalism of Finitude’ is based on the recognition of a world that has limited resources requiring states and businesses to quickly lay claim to as many of scarce resources as possible –much like the adventurers and trading companies of the age of great discoveries or like the colonial powers of the 19th century. Nowadays, the limitation and scarcity of living organisms, minerals and metals leads to a race to engage in unbridled competition to seize the last available lands and oceans, propelling the world into a new age of Capitalism of Finitude equivalent to nothing less than a territorial and sovereign imperialism by way of the occupation of territories (land, sea, space, and cyberspace) by large corporations. (A. Orain)
5. The questions here are: Will the abuses of the Capitalism of Finitude eventually lead to a political awakening that will help transition us away from Capitalism before the end of the 21st century? Are the innovation and the technology associated with extractivism and with land grabbing a false solution that prevents us from having an adult conversation about, for instance, the rights of nature and climate change? (Jean-Baptiste Fressoz)
6. All mitigation work, especially in climate work, has been marginal acting primarily as a facade and public relations strategy for large polluters and emitters. At best, they generate some moderate improvements that ignore the geographical redistribution of the most clearly harmful activities affecting poorer countries.
7. Fressoz insists that there is no realistic possibility of a carbon-free material abundance, and that the world is inconceivable without plastic, fertilizers, and cement –the pillars of modern life. He argues that the world cannot be decarbonized even with a transition to solar and wind power. Perhaps, then, the adult conversation should revolve around what a world with permanently deteriorating material standards will look like.
8. It is difficult to trust all those scientists, lawyers, political analysts, and academics* who continue to do what they have done for decades, namely serve the interests of Capital embarking in fantasies of energy transition as time is running out. (J-B. Fressoz)
*: Grassroot voices are not heard and/or considered by academia. There are two different social sciences academias: one aligned with the capitalist status quo and one aligned with the struggle for change. The former, often engages in data-extractive research giving no feedback to communities (a veritable corporatization of research without socialization of results).
Bottom line
—The antidote to climate despair is climate action. (Joan Baez)
—Older people will die of old age. Our children will die of climate change.
–Engaging children and young people in climate decision making is, therefore, key. (Grace Arnot)
9. The current global financial system is built on dispossession, extraction, and violence in which debt is a neo-colonial weapon used to dominate the countries rendered poor (and being rendered yet poorer). In this context, debt cancellation is not a concession —it is a demand for justice. It is the minimum owed to these countries and a necessary step toward climate reparations and systemic transformation.
10. Global solidarity must be framed as demands for reparative obligations, not for charity, but to address historical injustices resulting from colonialism and climate debt. It is critical to (and we will) hold wealthy nations accountable for financing sustainable development and climate action. The financing must be rooted in reparative justice, delivered as grants, not loans, and as unconditional climate finance grounded in a historical responsibility and in real needs of the countries rendered poor. (escr-net)
To supercharge action, we must activate the climate and the human rights ‘Silent Majority’ still out there
11. People are trapped in a self-fulfilling ‘spiral of silence’, because they mistakenly believe they are in a minority. Making people aware that their pro-climate/pro-HR views are, in fact, by far the majority could and ought to unlock a social tipping point and push leaders into the binding climate and human rights action so urgently needed.** (The Guardian)
**: ‘I think that more people need to realize that we have to do the hard work ourselves. There is a tendency to assume that we can rely on reality to do the job for us; that if there are people who talk nonsense, who support illogical policies, who ignore the facts, sooner or later, reality will wreak vengeance on them. And this is not the way that history works. So if you want the truth, and you want reality to win, each of us has to do some of the hard work ourselves: choose one thing and focus on that and hope that other people will also do their share. That way we avoid the extremes of despair.’ (Yuval Harari)
Claudio Schuftan, Ho Chi Minh City
Your comments are welcome at schuftan@gmail.com