From the farm to the DANA. The silenced truth and the necessary measures in the face of a climate chaos that has barely begun

October 29, 2024 will be remembered as the day in which several Valencian regions saw nightfall under the water that flooded streets and fields as a result of a DANA (Isolated Depression at High Levels) that dropped rainfall of enormous intensity: more than 400 l /m² in Chiva and exceeding 600 l/mm² in Turís. It is, precisely, in the town of Chiva where the ravine of the same name is located, which, fed by ravines from other towns, ends up flowing into the Albufera lake, this being a paradigmatic area of ​​the urban and destructive nonsense that annihilates nature.

Despite the fact that the entire area is rigorously mapped as flood-prone, there has not been the slightest problem in building uncontrollably, both around ravines and avenues and in the surroundings of the Albufera itself, constraining the lake ecosystem. According to an analysis of DATADIST, Three out of every ten homes affected by this DANA were built during the urban planning boom and in a flood zone, to which we must add the proliferation of industrial estates and shopping centers. For decades, this unbridled urbanism has proliferated, for speculative purposes, on the Spanish coast, associated with mass tourism and systemic corruption, modifying channels, occupying flood zones, extracting materials for construction and eroding soils, activities that make it difficult for water to flow. drain and give it even greater speed, increasing its strength.

Transition to plant diets that allow an effective restoration of nature, biodiversity and water and nutrient cycles, so that forests and oceans can regulate the planetary climate, integrating the anti-speciesist perspective, usually reviled and excluded, at the epicenter of the debate ecosocial.

The fact that it is part of the Natura 2000 Network and the Ramsar Wetland Network, which integrates the most important wetland areas in the world, has not prevented the lake from being subject to a degradation process caused by the implementation of infrastructures. urban waste, silting to create and maintain rice fields, polluting discharges and fishing. All of this demonstrates the hypocrisy and uselessness of ecosystem protection figures. In this state, the Albufera was unable to assimilate the raging waters that came from the ravines, this being one of the key factors in the brutal overflow of all the channels, affecting, in its path, all the towns in the area of ​​influence.

The scientific community has spent years alerting that events such as the DANA that has devastated Valencia and other parts of the Spanish territory will become increasingly stronger and more frequent due to climate change. This DANA, which has been described as the largest catastrophe in the country’s history, is only the announced beginning of what is to come in the coming years. How many DANAs like this or worse will happen until governments activate the climate emergency? And, above all, what should really be done in this emergency to avoid the exponential increase in these catastrophes, and which does not appear at all on the governments’ agenda?

Radical decrease in consumption in all areas of life as the only way to stop fossil fuels, towards deindustrialized ways of life closer to those of numerous indigenous communities on Earth.

The underlying problems are complex and rarely mentioned. On the one hand, these DANA, traditionally known as cold drop, are typical of the Mediterranean climate, but their unusual virulence is the effect of a warming of the ocean that is multiplying due to the Greenhouse Gases (GHG) emitted by human activities, where they stand out , not only carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels, but also methane and nitrous oxides derived from livestock farming, which it emits on its own more GHG than global transportand the meat industry, especially that from livestock extensivewhich has an impact four times greater than that of aviation.

At the same time that the most superficial layer of water is warming due to excess GHGs, fishing (especially, but not only, industrial and trawling) devastates the ocean ecosystemsdrastically reducing the ocean’s capacity to regulate planetary climate and massively destroying ecosystems, species and populations of marine life. Likewise, on land massively deforest the tropics and all types of forests, especially to create livestock pastures, with the same double effect of emitting GHGs due to the change in land use and eliminating carbon sinks and resilience of ecosystems, which maintain the vital functions of the system. earth and its cycles, as detailed in the paradigm of “Planetary Limits”. Meanwhile, aquaculture has a devastating impact on coastal ecosystems crucial for climate regulation, and livestock farming and agriculture are the source of 700 dead zones in the oceans due to nitrate and slurry discharges.

All of this must lead to a profound rethinking of civilization and dominant ways of life. The response to DANA, to stop its exponential proliferation as much as possible, would have to be, in this order:

Without these measures, we can only prepare for an exponential multiplication of these events, as well as extreme droughts and fires, deadly heat waves, extreme rise in sea levels and much more, assuming a scenario of possible extinction in this century due to delirium. of a suicidal and genocidal economy of unlimited growth.

Profound rethinking of our ubiquitous and destructive way of inhabiting and occupying the Earth, with a stop to urbanization, especially on the much-punished coast, as well as initiating a debate on the taboo of overpopulation, which urgently needs to be addressed from radically democratic, ecofeminist perspectives. , queer and anti-racist

But all this is silencednot only from governments of all political stripes, but even from the climate and environmental movements themselves, due to the weight of the livestock-fishing lobby in all of them, as we have been denouncing from Rebeldes Indignadas in relation to Scientific Rebellion Spainand the recalcitrant speciesism that permeates almost all ecosocial groups. We face it a call to action.

EDITORS NOTE: This statement was published by some digital media immediately after the passage of DANA that devastated part of the Valencian Community. We have considered it pertinent to echo it, given the relevance of its perspective on the causes and consequences of the climate emergency.