This autumn we have started with renewed energy before a new course that is presented at least complicated. This exceptionally hot summer has put us squarely in the face of the threat of the climate crisis. Extreme and long-lasting heat waves, devastating fires, prolonged droughts… are phenomena that affect globally and that, if we do not take urgent action, threaten life on the planet.
There is a clear scientific consensus in pointing out the action of the human being as the main cause of the accelerated climate warming and the consequences that it is producing in the fragile ecological balance of our planet. Yes, we are experiencing the end of abundance: that of natural resources, which allowed an exceptional wealth of life and which we have happily plundered without having managed to build a just, equitable world in harmony with nature.
The new course also begins with an increasingly unstable international context. The conflict in Ukraine is entrenched and, in addition to prolonging the population’s suffering unnecessarily, it is threatening the supply of energy to our wealthy homes in Europe, as well as the grain supply on which the food security of many countries in Africa depends. . It will also cause an increase in the number of people seeking asylum and refuge from the armed conflict and the poverty and famine it is causing.
The continuity of the conflict is also encouraging an increase in military spending that compromises the necessary resources to get out of the still very recent covid-19 crisis. There is hardly any talk of reinforcing education, health and care for the elderly and dependents and the environment. In full confinement we read a message that made us laugh, but that we now see as prescient: “We are going to get out of this regulinchi…”.
Inflation, the energy and food crisis, the climate emergency and diminishing natural resources will have greater effects among the most vulnerable population
On the horizon, a new economic crisis that will increase the already tremendous structural economic inequalities that the pandemic aggravated. Inflation, the energy and food crisis, the climate emergency and diminishing natural resources will have greater effects among the most vulnerable population. In this situation of economic and social uncertainty, authoritarian discourses, loss of rights, individualism and intolerance are becoming stronger. Autocracies in the world grow to the detriment of democracies, and these lose quality and capacity to deal effectively with global challenges. What generates, in the end, a growing lack of credibility among citizens.
Faced with this ugly panorama, social entities continue to offer a powerful message of solidarity because, as the paleoanthropologist María Martinón-Torres maintains, our strength is not individual, it is always as a group. the biologist Lynn Margulis He also affirmed that cooperation is the basis of life. Collaboration between equals, empathy with those we do not know, but recognize as equals, is what really makes us human.
By fostering feelings of cooperation and collaboration to carry out joint ventures and help each other in emergencies, we will be able to face the global challenges that affect us as humanity. A collaboration based on the universal defense of human rights and that has gender equity and care for the planet as cross-cutting axes.
The massive destruction of the natural environment caused by human beings is threatening our life on the planet, so our relationship with nature must change. We cannot feel superior to other living beings, but rather dependent on a natural environment that gives us everything. We have the obligation to preserve it for our own survival and for a criterion of generational justice: our sons and daughters have the right to enjoy the same as us.
Likewise, this new relationship with the environment also implies changing an economic system based on mass consumption that depletes our natural resources and does not provide the happiness that it promises. Recycling, reducing, reusing is important, but it is even more important to change our lifestyle, our concept of the more the better. The social economy, the local trade and the small producer constitute a powerful alternative economic model. “Cooperatives and other companies in the social and solidarity economy can lead the way towards greater resilience in these times of crisis”, as pointed out by the Secretary General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres. Indeed, the social economy is resisting better the successive crises that we are going through and it is emerging as the best alternative to the growing industrialization of the countryside and food production.
In order for democracy to regain its credibility with the citizenry, the effective participation of civil society in public policies must be promoted.
On the other hand, a society will not be truly just and egalitarian if there is no equitable distribution of wealth. We need a global tax system that unites society and guarantees equal opportunities and in which no one is left unprotected. A fair and proportional tax system in which those who have more pay more taxes and those who have less pay less or do not pay taxes at all: taxes contribute to having quality public services that cover the needs of all people, especially of the most vulnerable, which are those with the fewest resources. Economists such as Thomas Piketty and Gabriel Zucman have proposed increased taxation of large companies. The International Monetary Fund itself and the OECD (Organization for Cooperation and Development) maintain that the tax bases can be progressively expanded, on capital income, property or activities such as digital, with which to generate resources that allow us to get out of this crisis
Tax justice ensures a more cohesive and democratic society. In order for democracy to recover its credibility with the citizenry, the effective participation of civil society in public policies, in their configuration, monitoring and evaluation, must be promoted. Citizen councils, tables or participatory budgets are clear examples that must be promoted so that citizens are involved in the construction of society. The support of the administrations is necessary to strengthen the essential social fabric for a living and dynamic community that works for its rights and obligations, and also to stop anti-democratic speeches and attitudes of intolerance and exclusion.
We all fit into a global society if we learn to build it in collaboration and cooperation, recognizing ourselves as part of the same humanity.
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