To say that Rio+20 was a success is a fantasy, because not a single binding measure was reached, and neither funds to eradicate poverty, nor mechanisms to control global warming was created. No decisions were taken regarding the purpose of the Conference, which was to create conditions for the «future we want». The logic of the governments is not to admit failures, but failures still exist. Given the general degradation of all the eco-systemic services, failing to make progress is to regress.

Deep down Rio+20 affirmed that if the crisis lies in growth, then the solution is still more growth. This necessarily means greater use of nature’s goods and services, which accelerates their exhaustion, and puts more pressure on the ecosystems, which have already reached their limit. Data by the very UN organs show that since Rio 92 there has been a 12% loss of biodiversity, 3 million square meters of forests and jungles were destroyed, 40% more green house gasses were released, and about half of the world reserves of fish have been depleted.

What is surprising is that neither the final document nor its draft reveal any self criticism. They neither question how we have come to the present situation, nor clearly recognize the systemic character of the crisis. This is the theoretical weakness and conceptual deficiency of this, and in general, other official UN documents. Let’s enumerate some critical points.

Those who continue within the old cultural and social structure that places the human being in an Adam-like position, above nature, as her dominator and exploiter, are the fundamental cause of the present ecological crisis. They fail to understand humans as being part of nature, and responsible for the common destiny. They have not incorporated the vision of the new cosmology that sees the Earth as alive, and the human being as the conscious and intelligent portion of the Earth itself, with the mission of caring for her and guaranteeing sustainability. The Earth is seen only as a warehouse of resources, with neither intelligence nor purpose.

They adopted the «great transformation» (Polanyi), when they annulled ethics, set aside politics, and made the economy the sole axis for structuring all of society. From a market economy we have transitioned to a market society, separating the real economy from the financial speculative economy, with the latter directing the former.

They confuse development with growth, whereas development is the collection of values and conditions that foster the realization of human existence, and growth is the mere production of goods to be commercialized and consumed. They understand sustainability as the means of guaranteeing the continuity and the reproduction of the same, of the institutions, the enterprises and other organizations, without changing their internal logic or questioning their impact on the eco-systemic services. They are hostage to an anthropocentric point of view, according to which all other beings have meaning only to the extent they are ordained for human use, thus ignoring the community of life, also generated, as are we ourselves, by Mother Earth. They have a utilitarian relationship with all beings, denying their intrinsic value, because of which they are due respect, and have rights, especially planet Earth.

Viewing everything through the economic vision of competition rather than cooperation, they abolished the ethical and spiritual dimension from the reflections on lifestyles, and the means by which societies produce and consume. Without ethics or spirituality we turn ourselves into barbarians, insensitive to the suffering of millions and millions of starving and miserable human beings. Therefore, a radical individualism reigns, with each country seeking its own particular good above the global common good, thus precluding consensus and the convergence of the diversities in UN Conferences. And so, content and alienated, we head towards an encounter with the abyss created by our lack of sensible reason, wisdom, and a transcendent sense of existence.

With these conceptual deficiencies, we will never emerge from the crises that destroy us. This was the cry of the Leadership of the Peoples that offered alternatives of hope. In the worst case scenario, the Earth will continue, but without us. May the Divine not let that happen, because God is «the sovereign lover of life», as the Judeo-Christian Scriptures affirm.

See L.Boff & M.Hathaway,The Tao of Liberation– Exploring the Ecology of Transformation, Orbis Books, N.Y. 2010.