This article is published in number 39 of Vanity Fair on newsstands until 28 September 2021
As we painfully return to pre-Covid-19 life, we not only discover that it can never necessarily be the same, but also, and painfully, that the environmental crisis that afflicts the sapiens on planet Earth has not disappeared and that no vaccine can contain it. . The pandemic itself has an obvious environmental root (like the other previous ones, including AIDS) in the deforestation that precipitates bats loaded with pathogens in a state of stress to put in check almost eight billion sapiens with all their technological apparatus, while they tolerate them very well.
Sars-Cov-2 has bat and Malayan pangolin genes, but we there, looking for the Chinese culprit, exactly as in the seventeenth century the plague was blamed on “clothes bought or stolen from Alemannic soldiers” (The betrothed). Is that, when the problem depends on us, we always need an “other” enemy on which to unload our sins and inability.
As for climate change current, the fault of the stars or of chance. Over 99% of specialist scientists have highlighted that it is global, accelerated and has nothing to do with those of the past, and that it depends on the productive activities of sapiens. The latest IPCC report uses the adjective “unequivocal»About the responsibilities of man and, out of about 20,000 scientific articles published each year on the climate, only about twenty (20) are skeptical. But, then, why is the widespread opinion that scientists disagree with each other? Because the difference is communication, which puts those who are skeptical and those who are not on the same level, producing a damage that is difficult to remedy: if not even the scientists agree, why should I commit myself and maybe change my habits? Exactly the goal of those who continue to profit from 95 million barrels of oil extracted every day on climate change.
Ma the situation is serious, for the living, not for the planet which, after all, does not care happily about the changing climate: if we were to stop suddenly and at the same time all the activities that produce climate-altering gases in the world, it would take half a century for the temperature of the atmosphere does not continue to grow. How it takes hundreds of meters to stop a truck launched at full speed downhill. Every now and then someone notices it but, instead of implementing concrete and immediate actions, proposes yet another recipe of the century, technological, of course, as if the resolution of problems was not, instead, cultural, having to incorporate the idea of limit in our horizons, starting with the economic ones. How it is possible to pursue ever-growing GDP on a planet whose resources are limited by definition is typical madness of ignorant natural science economists: There is no healthy economy if it does not have a healthy biosphere behind it, the very one we risk not finding. But the fault lies with the environmentalists, perhaps radical chic (who knows if there will be other types), who point this out, not with those who would not want to know about the objective limits set by nature and believe that a world populated only by sapiens is possible, from farmed animals and artifacts. Today, for the first time in the history of the Earth, the artificial mass of buildings (concrete, bricks, plastics) has surpassed biomass, and it is not good.
In this context, there are those who are struck by the “new” nuclear energy. New of course, that the old one, in addition to having caused two accidents that half was enough, satisfies less than 15% of the primary energy in the world: had it really been the panacea, why was it not used more? The problem is that there is no new nuclear generation of fission (the fourth has always been almost ready for twenty years) e there isn’t even a merger one any time soon. That nuclear power always costs too much (10 billion for a single power plant), that it takes ten years to build one, that nobody wants it on their own territory (and I would like to see in which municipality in Lombardy) and that we still don’t know where to put the waste. , not to mention a couple of opposing referendums with Bulgarian percentages.
But we are in an ecological transition, they warn us, even if we do not understand what it is actually about. I would have understood better ecological reconversion, that yes a process whose extent depends on the actions of men and which consists in reconverting productive activities by increasing jobs in a logic of circular economy. We, on the other hand, speak of transition, which seems a historical dynamic dependent on destiny, forgetting that it is the current economic system that produces climate imbalances and that it is difficult to reform it without first breaking it down.
And without realizing that we have developed for two hundred years making pork from the environment and the workforce of other peoples, while now we demand that the emerging ones develop as we want, pointing out to them that China contributes 28% to the ongoing global warming. But forgetting that a single US citizen produces about 20 tons of CO2 / year, compared to seven for a Chinese and about one for an African. It is the lifestyle of the richest that is unsustainable, not that there are too many others. So in 30 years we will have about 250 million migrants on our borders, about 80% caused by the climate change that has brought the dunes into their sub-Saharan homes or the sea waters on the rice fields in Pakistan and Bangladesh. Refugees of the changing climate, who have not benefited from the economic revolution that has enriched us, while we ourselves accept all the disadvantages: brilliant, isn’t it? And we also complain if they knock on our doors.
Oil, gas, coal and uranium are large, centralized, dangerous and expensive, while renewables are democratic, ubiquitous and, above all, free. However, the most important of the alternative energy choices is greater efficiency coupled with savings: if we converted our everyday tools to the best available technology, we could save up to 46% of energy in the next 15-20 years. The lifestyle theme produces an immediate critique of back to the Middle Ages and other similar amenities, but if we do not consume less ourselves first, the penalty is the loss of well-being here, of life or freedom elsewhere, and environmental deterioration without return for all.
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Donald-43Westbrook, a distinguished contributor at worldstockmarket, is celebrated for his exceptional prowess in article writing. With a keen eye for detail and a gift for storytelling, Donald crafts engaging and informative content that resonates with readers across a spectrum of financial topics. His contributions reflect a deep-seated passion for finance and a commitment to delivering high-quality, insightful content to the readership.