Categoria: Economia

Reality can be worse than we think

Leonardo BoffDeixe um comentário

We are living through dramatic moments in human history. We spent the last 10,000 years, the Holocene era, with relative calm, with an average climate of 15 degrees Celsius. Everything began to change with the industrial and energy revolution in the 18th century. The concentration of CO2, the main responsible for climatic disturbances, began to skyrocket.

n 1950 it reached 300 ppm, in 2015 it exceeded 400 ppm and is currently approaching 420 ppm. Experts say that the level of CO2 in the atmosphere, increased by the entry of methane with the thawing of the polar ice caps and permafrost (icy regions that go from Canada to the ends of Siberia), being 80 times more harmful than CO2, is already the biggest, at least, of the last 3 million years.

It is seriously feared that pests frozen for thousands of years, once thawed, can affect our immune system that would not be immune to them, decimating many lives. Warming continues to increase, causing sea level rise, acidification of ocean waters, erosion of biodiversity, air and soil contamination, deforestation, the occurrence of extreme events and the intrusion of a wide range of harmful viruses to human life, like Covid-19.

The last COP26 in Glasgow in 2021 raised the alarm: if we do nothing from now on, we will slowly reach 2030 at 1.5 degrees Celsius or more. Then there would be major socio-ecological catastrophes. There is talk of a “planetary emergency” and even an “ecological Armageddon” that would devastate much of life as we know it. It would be a consequence of the new geological era of the Anthropocene, perhaps, of the Necrocene itself. Who cares about this worrying and ominous scenario? Almost nobody.

Unconsciousness is lived like in Noah’s time. As no one knows when or how the “flood” will come, everyone is in business as usual, yearning for a return to the old normality, exactly the one that is producing the global tragedy of the coronavirus. Even more serious is the realization that there is no collective will, either in the heads of state or in world society, to warn of the serious consequences for our lives, for the life of nature and for the destiny of our civilization.

The climate issue does not enter the radar of public policies or in the last places. However, we believe that, in a few years, it will be the issue of issues, when, due to the excess of heat, large regions will become uninhabitable, crops will be frustrated and millions of climatic and hungry migrants will jeopardize the stability of nations. Few are the prophets who cry out in the desert being considered apocalyptic and knights of the sad news.

But those who have overcome this blindness feel the ethical and moral duty to awaken consciences and prepare humanity for the worst. Because of the irresponsibility of the CEOs of large corporations, the inertia of the heads of state, the neglect of society, the various knowledges and movements (with the exception of some such as Greenpeace, the MST, Greta Thunberg and others) in raising a collective conscience, we may know a reality worse than we imagine.

The events that we are suffering worldwide with the coronavirus, the great floods in Bahia, Minas Gerais, Tocantins, alongside the severe droughts in the south of the country, not to mention the extreme events in the USA, Europe and the Asian tsunami, could pull us out of alienation and show us, really, that the future that awaits us could be worse than we thought. Do we have a chance to delay the end of the world, in the expression of indigenous leadership, Ailton Krenak?

We can. Let’s do a mental exercise about our time within the great cosmogenic process. If we reduce the age of the universe (13.7 billion years) to one year, the first singularity, the Big Bang, would have occurred on January 1st. Life only on October 2nd. Homo sapiens, our ancestor, on December 31 at 11:53 am. Our documented history, in the last ten seconds before midnight. It is us? In a fraction of a second before midnight (Calculations by physicist and cosmologist Brian Swimme).

 We are almost nothing. However, it is through us that the Earth becomes aware and with our eyes sees the entire universe. Consider the coronavirus: so tiny that it is invisible to the naked eye: and what havoc it is doing to humanity. Similarly we are: we are almost a zero in the face of the Infinite. But we carry the consciousness and intelligence of the Whole that is made known to us.

Surely, no matter how irresponsible we are, we are important to the known universe and we believe that we will not disappear from the face of the Earth. We will live and billiard. For this, two things are urgent: the first, to create a deep affective bond with nature and the Earth. Love them and take care of them. Second, we need to live in intimate communion with them. Communion is more than a fundamental theological concept. It is a fact of the deepest reality: everything is in communion with everything because everyone is inter-retro-related. Internalizing this communion, we can feel like brothers and sisters of all things in the style of Saint Francis of Assisi.

And so we will behave. This behavior is required of us now. He will be able to save life and also save us all: affection and communion.

Leonardo Boff wrote Inhabiting the Earth: which way to universal fraternity, Voices, 2022; Caring for the Earth-saving life: how to escape the end of the world, Record 2010.

Há maneiras de evitar o fim do mundo?

Leonardo BoffDeixe um comentário

Em todas as épocas, desde as ancestrais, como por ocasião da invenção do fogo,surgem imagens do fim do mundo. De repente, o fogo poderia queimar tudo. Mas os seres humanos conseguiram domesticar os riscos e evitar ou protelar o fim do mundo. Atualmente não é diferente. Mas a nossa situação possui uma singularidade: de fato, não imaginariamente, podemos, efetivamente, destruir toda a vida visível,assim como a conhecemos. Construímos o princípio de autodestruição com armas nucleares, químicas e biológicas que,ativadas,podem de fato eliminar a vida visível sobre a Terra,salvaguardados os micro-organismos que aos quintilhões de quintilhões se ocultam debaixo do solo.

Que podemos fazer diante deste eventual Armageddon ecológico? Sabemos que cada ano, milhares de espécies de seres vivos, chegados ao seu clímax,desaparecem para sempre, depois de terem vivido milhões e milhões de anos neste planeta. O desaparecimento de muitos deles é causado pelos comportamentos vorazes de uma porção da humanidade que vive um super-consumismo e dão de ombros aos eventuais desastres ecológicos.

Será que chegou a nossa vez de sermos eliminados da face da Terra, seja por nossa irresponsabilidade, seja porque ocupamos quase todo o espaço terrestre de forma não amigável mas agressiva? Não teríamos, desta forma, criado as condições de um não retorno e daí de nosso desaparecimento?

 O planeta inteiro, afirmam alguns microbiólogos (Lynn Margulis/Dorion Sagan), seria uma espécie de “placa de Petri”: são duas placas contendo bactérias e  nutrientes. Ao perceberem o esgotamento deles, elas se multiplicam furiosamente e, de repente, todas morrem. Não seria a Terra uma placa de Petri com  o nosso destino semelhante a estas bactérias?

 Com efeito, os  humanos ocupamos 83% do planeta, exaurimos quase todos os nutrientes não renováveis (the Earth Overshoot), a população cresceu, no último século e meio, de forma exponencial e assim entraríamos na lógica das bactérias da “placa de Petri”. Iríamos fatalmente ao encontro de um fim semelhante?

Como somos portadores de inteligência e de meios técnicos além de valores ligados ao cuidado da vida e de sua preservação,não teríamos condições de “protelar o fim do mundo” (na expressão do líder indígena Ailton Krenak) ou de “escapar do fim do mundo,”expressão usada por mim? Não esqueçamos a advertência severa do Papa Francisco em sua encíclica Fratelli tutti (2021): “estamos todos no mesmo barco: ou nos salvamos todos ou ninguém se salva”. Temos que mudar, caso contráro vamos ao encontro de um desastre ecológico-social sem precedentes.

Aduzo algumas reflexões que nos apontam para uma possível salvaguarda de nosso destino, da vida e de nossa civilização. Parece-nos esperançadora a afirmação recente de Edgar Morin:

“A história várias vezes mostrou que o surgimento do inesperado e o aparecimento do improvável são plausíveis e podem mudar o rumo dos acontecimentos”. Cremos que ambos – o inesperado e o plausível – sejam possíveis. A humanidade passou por várias crises de grande magnitude e sempre conseguiu sair e de forma melhor. Por que agora seria diferente?

Ademais, existe em nós aquilo que foi aproveitado pelo Papa na referida encíclclica:”convido-os à esperança que nos fala de uma realidade enraizada no profundo do ser humano, independentemente das circunstâncias concretas e dos condicionamentos históricos em que vive”(n.55).Esse princípio esperança (Ernst Bloch) é fonte de inovações, novas utopias e práticas salvadoras.

O ser humano é movido pela esperança e comparece como um ser utópico, vale dizer, um projeto infinito. Sempre poderá escolher um caminho de salvação, pois, o desejo de vida, mais e melhor,  prevalece sobre o desejo de morte.

Geralmente, este novo possui a natureza de uma semente: começa em pequenos grupos, mas carrega a vitalidade e o futuro de toda semente. Dela brota lentamente o novo até ganhar sustentabilidade e inaugurar uma nova etapa do experimento humano.

Por todas as partes no mundo estão atuando os novos Noés, construindo suas arcas salvadoras, vale dizer, ensaiando uma nova economia ecológica, a produção orgânica, formas solidárias de produção e de consumo e um novo tipo de democracia popular, participativa e ecológico-social.

Estas são sementes, portadores de um futuro de esperança. São elas que poderão garantir uma forma nova de habitar a Casa Comum, cuidando dela, todos os ecossistemas incluídos, vivendo, quem sabe, o sonho andino do bien vivir y convivir.

Leonardo Boff é ecoteólogo, filósofo e escritor e escreveu Cuidar a Terra-proteger a vida:como escapar do fim do mundo, Record,Rio 2010.

La realidad puede ser peor de lo que imaginamos

Leonardo BoffDeixe um comentário

Estamos viviendo momentos dramáticos de la historia humana. Hemos pasado los últimos 10 mil años, la era del holoceno, con relativa calma, y con un clima medio de 15 grados centígrados. Todo empezó a cambiar a partir del siglo XVIII con la revolución industrial y energética. La concentración de CO2, responsable principal de los disturbios climáticos, empezó a dispararse. En 1950 alcanzó las 300 ppm, en 2015 superó las 400 ppm y en la actualidad se acerca a las 420 ppm.

Dicen los especialistas que el nivel de CO2 en la atmósfera, potenciado por la entrada del metano producido por el deshielo de los cascos polares y del permafrost (regiones heladas que van de Canadá hasta los confines de Siberia), que es varias veces más dañino que el CO2, ya es el mayor, por lo menos de los últimos 3 millones de años. Se teme seriamente que plagas congeladas hace muchos miles de años, una vez descongeladas puedan afectar a nuestro sistema inmunológico, que no sería inmune a ellas, acabando por destruir muchas vidas.

El calentamiento sigue creciendo y provocando la subida del nivel del mar, la acidificación de las aguas oceánicas, la erosión de la biodiversidad, la contaminación del aire y de los suelos, la deforestación, la aparición de eventos extremos y la entrada de una variada gama variada de virus dañinos para la vida humana, como el Covid-19. La última COP26 realizada en Glasgow en 2021 activó la alarma: si no hacemos nada a partir de ahora, lentamente llegaremos a 2030 con un aumento de 1,5 grados centígrados o más. Entonces sucederían grandes catástrofes socioecológicas. Se habla de una “emergencia planetaria” e incluso de un “Armagedón ecológico” que devastarían gran parte de la vida tal como la conocemos. Sería consecuencia de la nueva era geológica del antropoceno, quizá del necroceno mismo.

¿Alguien se preocupa con este escenario inquietante y amenazador? Casi nadie. Se vive en la inconsciencia como en los tiempos de Noé. Como nadie sabe cuándo ni cómo vendrá el “diluvio”, todos se entregan a los negocios as usual, ansiando la vuelta a la antigua normalidad, que es justamente la que está produciendo la tragedia global del coronavirus. Pero más grave aún es la constatación de que no se evidencia una voluntad colectiva ni en los jefes de estado, ni en la sociedad mundial, de alertar sobre las graves consecuencias para nuestras vidas, para la vida de la naturaleza y para el destino de nuestra civilización. La  cuestión climática no entra en el radar de las políticas públicas o lo hace en los últimos lugares. Sin embargo, creemos que en pocos años, será la cuestión de las cuestiones, cuando por el exceso de calor grandes regiones se vuelvan inhabitables, las cosechas se frustren y millones de emigrantes climáticos y famélicos pongan en peligro la estabilidad de las naciones.

Pocos son los profetas que claman en el desierto; son considerados apocalípticos y caballeros de la triste noticia. Pero los que superaron esta ceguera sienten el deber ético y moral de despertar las conciencias y preparar a la humanidad para lo peor.

Debido a la irresponsabilidad de los CEOs de las grandes corporaciones, a la inercia de los jefes de estado, a la negligencia de la sociedad, a la indiferencia de los distintos saberes y movimientos (con excepción de algunos como Greenpeace, MST, Greta Thunberg y otros) en suscitar una conciencia colectiva, podremos conocer una realidad peor de lo que imaginamos. Los eventos que estamos sufriendo planetariamente con el coronavirus, las grandes inundaciones en Bahía, en Minas Gerais, en Tocantins, junto con las duras sequías en el sur del país, sin hablar de los eventos extremos en Estados Unidos, en Europa y el tsunami asiático podrán sacarnos de la alienación y mostrarnos realmente que el futuro que nos espera podrá ser peor de lo que pensamos.

¿Tenemos la posibilidad de retrasar el fin del mundo, en la expresión del líder indígena, Ailton Krenak? Podemos. Hagamos un ejercicio mental sobre nuestro tiempo dentro del gran proceso cosmogénico. Si reducimos la edad del universo, sus 13.700 millones de años, a un año, la primera singularidad, el Big Bang, habría ocurrido el día primero de enero. La vida, sólo el 2 octubre. Nuestro antepasado el homo sapiens, el día 31 de diciembre a las  11 horas y 53 minutos. Nuestra historia documentada, en los últimos diez segundos antes de medianoche. ¿Y nosotros? En una fracción de segundo antes de la medianoche (son los cálculos del físico y cosmólogo Brian Swimme).

Somos casi nada. Sin embargo, a través de nosotros la Tierra toma conciencia y con nuestros ojos ve todo el universo. Consideremos el coronavirus: tan minúsculo que es invisible y qué estragos está haciendo en la humanidad. Semejantemente nosotros somos casi un cero ante el Infinito. Pero cargamos la conciencia y la inteligencia de Todo lo que nos es dado conocer. Seguramente, por más irresponsables que seamos, somos importantes para el conjunto del universo conocido y creemos que no vamos a desaparecer de la faz de la Tierra. Viviremos y brillaremos.

Para eso son urgentes dos cosas: la primera, crear un lazo afectivo profundo con la naturaleza y con la Tierra. Amarlas y cuidarlas. La segunda, que vivamos una íntima comunión con ellas. La comunión es más que un concepto teológico fundamental. Es un dato de la realidad más profunda: todo está en comunión con todo pues todos estamos inter-retro-relacionados. Internalizando esta comunión podemos sentirnos hermanos y hermanas de todas las cosas al estilo de San Francisco de Asís. Y comportarnos así. Es el comportamiento que se nos exige ahora. Él podrá salvar la vida y salvarnos también a todos nosotros: el afecto y la comunión.

*Leonardo Boff ha escrito: Habitar la Tierra: ¿cuál es el camino para la fraternidad universal?, Vozes 2022; Cuidar la Tierra-salvar la vida: cómo escapar del fin del mundo, Record 2010.

Traducción de Mª José Gavito Milano

Will Capital’s “iron cage” produce “a polar night, icy, dark and arduous”?

Leonardo BoffDeixe um comentário

          Leonardo Boff

We are still in 2021, a year that did not end because Covid-19 canceled the count of time to continue its lethal work. The 2022 could not, for now, be inaugurated. The fact is that the virus has brought all powers to their knees, especially the militarists, as their arsenal of death has become totally ineffective. However, the genius of capitalism, apropos of the pandemic, made the transnationalized capitalist class restructure itself through the Great Reset, expanding the recent digital economy through the integration of the giants: Microsoft, Facebook, Apple, Amazon , Google, Zoom and others with the military-industrial-security complex. Such an event represents the formation of an immense power, never before seen.

Note that this is an economic power of a capitalist nature and that, therefore, it fulfills its essential purpose, that of maximizing profits in an unlimited way, without regard to exploiting human beings and nature. Accumulation is not a means to a good life, but an end in itself, that is, accumulation for the sake of accumulation, which is irrational. The consequence of this radicalization of capitalism confirms what a sociologist at the University of California at Santa Barbara, William I. Robinson, in a recent article, well observed (ALAI 12/20/2021): “As the world gets rid of pandemic, there will be more inequality, conflicts, militarism and authoritarianism and to the same extent social upheavals and civil conflicts will increase; ruling groups will strive to expand the global police state to contain mass malcontents from below”.

Indeed, artificial intelligence with its billions and billions of algorithms will be used to control each person and the entire society. Where will this brutal power take humanity? Knowing the inexorable logic of the capitalist system, Max Weber, one of those who best analyzed it critically, just before he died, asserted: “What awaits us is not the flowering of autumn, but a polar night, icy, dark and arduous. (Le Savant et le Politique, Paris 1990, p. 194).

 He coined the strong expression that strikes at the heart of capitalism: it is an “iron cage” (Stahlartes Gehäuse) that cannot break and, therefore, can lead us to a great catastrophe (cf. the pertinent analysis by M.Löwy , La jaula de hierro: Max Weber and the Weberian Marxism, Mexico 2017). This opinion is shared by great names such as Thomas Man, Oswald Spengler, Ferdinand Tönnies, Eric Hobsbown, among others. Several world-society models are being discussed for the post-pandemic period.

The most important ones, besides the Great Reset of the billiards, are: green capitalism, ecosocialism, the bien viver and coexistence of the Andeans, biocivilization, of various groups and of Pope Francis among others.

This is not the place to detail such projects, which I did in the book Cvid-19: Mother Earth counterattacks Humanity (Voices 2020). I would just say: either we change the paradigm of production, consumption, coexistence and, especially, our relationship with nature, with respect and care, feeling that we are part of it and not about it as owners and masters, or else to fulfill ourselves.

Max Weber’s prognosis will be: from 2030 to 2050 at most, we will experience an ecological-social armageddon that is extremely harmful to life and to the Earth. In this sense, my feeling for the world tells me that whoever is going to destroy the order of capital, with its economy, politics and culture, would be no moment or school of critical thought.

 It would be Earth itself, a limited planet that no longer supports a project of unlimited growth. The visible climate change, object of discussion and decision-making (practically none) of the last UN COPs, the growing depletion of natural goods and services, fundamental for life (The Earth Overshoot) and the threat of disruption of the main nine barriers to development that cannot be broken at the price of civilization’s collapse.

A significant number of climate experts say we are too late. With the already accumulated greenhouse gases we will not be able to contain the catastrophe, only, with science and technology, to lessen its disastrous effects. But the great irreversible crisis will come. That’s why they became skeptics and even technofatalists. Are we resigned pessimists or, in Nietzsche’s sense, adherents of “heroic resignation”? I believe, as a pre-Socratic said: we must expect the unexpected, because if we don’t expect it, when it comes, we won’t notice it. The unexpected can occur, within the quantum perspective: the current suffering because of the systemic crisis will not be in vain; he is accumulating benevolent energies which, upon reaching a certain level of complexity and accumulation, will make a leap to another higher order with a new horizon of hope for life and for the living planet, Gaia, Mother Earth. Paulo Freire coined the expression to hope: not to wait for the situation to improve one day, but to create the conditions so that hope is not empty, but that, with our commitment, we make it effective. I believe that this leap, with our participation, could occur and would be within the possibilities of the history of the universe and the Earth: from the current destructive chaos, we can move to a generative chaos of a new way of being and inhabiting planet Earth. This is what I believe and hope, reinforced by the word of Revelation that says: “God created all things out of love because he is the passionate lover of life” (Wisdom 11:26). He will not allow us to end this tragically. We will still live in the benevolent light of the sun.

 Leonardo Boff, ecotheologist, philosopher and writer. Wrote The painful birth of Mother Earth: a society of fraternity without borders and social friendship, Vozes 2021; Inhabiting the Earth: What is the path to universal brotherhood? Voices 2121.

s the formation of an immense power, never before seen.

Note that this is an economic power of a capitalist nature and that, therefore, it fulfills its essential purpose, that of maximizing profits in an unlimited way, without regard to exploiting human beings and nature. Accumulation is not a means to a good life, but an end in itself, that is, accumulation for the sake of accumulation, which is irrational. The consequence of this radicalization of capitalism confirms what a sociologist at the University of California at Santa Barbara, William I. Robinson, in a recent article, well observed (ALAI 12/20/2021): “As the world gets rid of pandemic, there will be more inequality, conflicts, militarism and authoritarianism and to the same extent social upheavals and civil conflicts will increase; ruling groups will strive to expand the global police state to contain mass malcontents from below”.

Indeed, artificial intelligence with its billions and billions of algorithms will be used to control each person and the entire society. Where will this brutal power take humanity? Knowing the inexorable logic of the capitalist system, Max Weber, one of those who best analyzed it critically, just before he died, asserted: “What awaits us is not the flowering of autumn, but a polar night, icy, dark and arduous. (Le Savant et le Politique, Paris 1990, p. 194).

 He coined the strong expression that strikes at the heart of capitalism: it is an “iron cage” (Stahlartes Gehäuse) that cannot break and, therefore, can lead us to a great catastrophe (cf. the pertinent analysis by M.Löwy , La jaula de hierro: Max Weber and the Weberian Marxism, Mexico 2017). This opinion is shared by great names such as Thomas Man, Oswald Spengler, Ferdinand Tönnies, Eric Hobsbown, among others. Several world-society models are being discussed for the post-pandemic period.

The most important ones, besides the Great Reset of the billiards, are: green capitalism, ecosocialism, the bien viver and coexistence of the Andeans, biocivilization, of various groups and of Pope Francis among others.

This is not the place to detail such projects, which I did in the book Cvid-19: Mother Earth counterattacks Humanity (Voices 2020). I would just say: either we change the paradigm of production, consumption, coexistence and, especially, our relationship with nature, with respect and care, feeling that we are part of it and not about it as owners and masters, or else to fulfill ourselves.

Max Weber’s prognosis will be: from 2030 to 2050 at most, we will experience an ecological-social armageddon that is extremely harmful to life and to the Earth. In this sense, my feeling for the world tells me that whoever is going to destroy the order of capital, with its economy, politics and culture, would be no moment or school of critical thought.

 It would be Earth itself, a limited planet that no longer supports a project of unlimited growth. The visible climate change, object of discussion and decision-making (practically none) of the last UN COPs, the growing depletion of natural goods and services, fundamental for life (The Earth Overshoot) and the threat of disruption of the main nine barriers to development that cannot be broken at the price of civilization’s collapse.

A significant number of climate experts say we are too late. With the already accumulated greenhouse gases we will not be able to contain the catastrophe, only, with science and technology, to lessen its disastrous effects. But the great irreversible crisis will come. That’s why they became skeptics and even technofatalists. Are we resigned pessimists or, in Nietzsche’s sense, adherents of “heroic resignation”? I believe, as a pre-Socratic said: we must expect the unexpected, because if we don’t expect it, when it comes, we won’t notice it. The unexpected can occur, within the quantum perspective: the current suffering because of the systemic crisis will not be in vain; he is accumulating benevolent energies which, upon reaching a certain level of complexity and accumulation, will make a leap to another higher order with a new horizon of hope for life and for the living planet, Gaia, Mother Earth. Paulo Freire coined the expression to hope: not to wait for the situation to improve one day, but to create the conditions so that hope is not empty, but that, with our commitment, we make it effective. I believe that this leap, with our participation, could occur and would be within the possibilities of the history of the universe and the Earth: from the current destructive chaos, we can move to a generative chaos of a new way of being and inhabiting planet Earth. This is what I believe and hope, reinforced by the word of Revelation that says: “God created all things out of love because he is the passionate lover of life” (Wisdom 11:26). He will not allow us to end this tragically. We will still live in the benevolent light of the sun.

 Leonardo Boff, ecotheologist, philosopher and writer. Wrote The painful birth of Mother Earth: a society of fraternity without borders and social friendship, Vozes 2021; Inhabiting the Earth: What is the path to universal brotherhood? Voices 2121.