Categoria: Idiomas

The Insanity of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Russia and USA

Leonardo BoffDeixe um comentário

The book of Revelation, which narrates the final clashes of our history, between the forces of death and those of life, paints us a horse of fire that symbolizes war: “the rider was given to banish the peace of the earth so that men behead each other”(6,4). The war between Russia and Crimea and the order of the Russian president to keep nuclear weapons on high alert, provoke us to the action of the fire horse, the beheading of humanity, worth say, a human Armageddon.

The severe sanctions imposed by NATO and the USA on the Russian Federation can lead to the collapse of its entire economy. In the face of this national disaster, the possibility that the Russian leader does not accept defeat as if Napoleon (1812) or Hitler (1942) had taken the country, which they failed to do. Then he would carry out the threats and launch a nuclear strike. Only Russia’s arsenal can destroy, several times, all life on the planet. And a strike can damage the entire biosphere without which our life could not survive.

Behind this Russia/Ukraine confrontation hide powerful forces in dispute for world hegemony: Russia, allied with China and the USA. The strategy of the latter is more or less known, guided by two main ideas: “one world and one empire” (the USA), guaranteed by full-spectrum dominance: domination in all fields with 800 military bases distributed around the world, but also with economic, ideological and cultural domination.

Such complete domination would underlie the USA’s claim to be “exceptional”, to be “the indispensable and necessary nation”, the “anchor of global security” or the “only truly world power”. In this imperial will, NATO, behind which the USA stands, expanded to the limits of Russia. All that was needed was the insertion of Ukraine to close the siege. Missiles placed on the Ukrainian border would reach Moscow in minutes.

Hence Russia’s demand for Ukraine to remain neutral, otherwise it would be invaded. This is what happened with the perversities that every war produces. No war is justifiable because it kills human lives and goes against the meaning of things, which is the tendency to persist in existence.

China, in turn, disputes world hegemony not through military means, even in alliance with Russia, but through economic means with its great projects such as the Silk Road. In this field it is surpassing the USA and would reach world hegemony even with a certain ethical ideal, that of creating “a community of common destiny shared by all humanity, with societies sufficiently supplied”.

But I don’t want to prolong this warlike perspective, truly insane to the point of being suicidal. But this confrontation of powers reveals the unawareness of the actors on the screen about the real risks to the planet that, even without nuclear weapons, could endanger human life. It must be said that all arsenals of weapons of mass destruction have proven to be totally useless and ridiculous in the face of a tiny virus like Covid-19.

This war reveals that those responsible for human destiny have not learned the basic lesson of Covid-19. It has not respected national sovereignties and national boundaries, it has affected the entire planet. The epidemic calls for the establishment of global governance in the face of a global problem. The challenge goes beyond national borders, it is to build the Common Home.

They have not realized that the big problem is global warming. We are already in it, since the fatal events of flooding entire regions, typhoons, and shortage of fresh water are visible. We only have 9 years to avoid a situation of no return. If by 2030 we reach 1.5 degrees Celsius of heat, we will be unable to control it and will be heading towards a collapse of the Earth-system and the life-systems.

We have reached the limits of Earth’s sustainability (Earth Overshoo) data show that by September 22, 2020, the non-renewable resources necessary for life will be exhausted.The consumerism that persists demands of Earth what she can no longer give.In response, she sends us deadly viruses, increases warming, destabilizes climates, and decimates thousands of living beings.

Overpopulation associated with a disastrous social inequality, with the vast majority of humanity living in poverty and misery, when 1% of them control 90% of the wealth and essential goods and services, can lead to conflicts with countless victims and the devastation of entire ecosystems.

These are the problems,among others,that should concern the heads of state,the CEOs of large corporations and the citizens,because they directly jeopardize the future of all humanity. In the face of this global risk, a war for zones of influence and obsolete sovereignties is ridiculous.

What gives us hope are those anonymous “Noahs” that are sprouting everywhere, from below, building their saving arks through production that respects the limits of nature, through agro-ecology, through communities of solidarity, through participatory socio-ecological democracies, working from their own territories. They have the strength of the seed of the new, and with a new mind (the Earth as Gaia) and a new heart (a bond of affection and care for nature) they guarantee a new future with the awareness of universal responsibility and global interdependence. Their war is against hunger and the production of death, and their struggle is for justice for all, promotion of life, and defense of the weakest and most destitute.

They are not alone. There are powerful forces with another vision of necessary development and that do not subscribe to capitalist logic but produce in harmony with nature that are bearers of hope for another necessary world.

That is what must be. And what should be, has intrinsically an invincible force.

Leonardo Boff is an eco-theologian, philosopher, and has written Inhabiting the Earth: what is the way to universal brotherhood? Vozes 2021.

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.

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.

Die Zukunft des menschlichen Lebens auf der Erde hängt von uns ab      

Leonardo BoffDeixe um comentário

Leonardo Boff*

Covid-19 hat uns, indem es alle Menschen betrifft, ein Signal gegeben, das interpretiert werden muss. Nichts in der Natur ist zufällig. Die mechanistische Auffassung, dass die Natur und die Erde keinen Zweck haben, ist überholt. Als Lebewesen sind sie Träger von Bedeutung und Teil des Gesamtbildes des kosmogenen Prozesses, der mittlerweile 13,7 Milliarden Jahre alt ist. Hätten sich all diese Elemente nicht über Milliarden von Jahren auf subtile Weise herausgebildet, wären wir nicht hier, um über diese Dinge zu schreiben.

Was ist der unmittelbarste Sinn, den uns die Natur mit dem Angriff des Coronavirus offenbart? Die Bedeutung wird uns in Form einer Ermahnung vermittelt:

“Stoppen Sie den systematischen und verwerflichen Angriff auf Ökosysteme, auf Wälder und Dschungel, auf Böden, auf Gewässer, auf die biologische Vielfalt. Ihre industriellen und extraktivistischen Megakonzerne, Ihre Bergbauunternehmen, die Agrarkonzerne in Partnerschaft mit der Agro-Toxin-Industrie, die Gigatonnen von Treibhausgasen in die Atmosphäre ausstoßen, die Ursachen für die Erosion der biologischen Vielfalt, Sie zerstören die Grundlagen, die Ihr eigenes Leben erhalten; Sie schaufeln sich in absehbarer Zeit Ihr eigenes Grab; nicht die Familienbauern, die Armen der Erde, sondern Sie zerstören die Lebensräume von Tausenden von Viren, die in Tieren vorkommen; um zu überleben, haben Sie im Menschen einen Wirt für ihr Überleben gefunden, auf Kosten Ihres Lebens. Das falsche Projekt des unbegrenzten Wachstums/Entwicklung eurer konsumistischen Kultur kann von der Natur und der Erde, dem alten und begrenzten Planeten, nicht mehr mit Waren und Dienstleistungen unterstützt werden; als Reaktion auf die Gewalt gegen mich – die Natur und Mutter Erde – habe ich euch bereits mehrere Viren geschickt, die euch angegriffen haben, aber ihr habt in ihnen kein Zeichen gesehen, ihr habt nicht gelernt, sie zu lesen, noch habt ihr die Lektion gezogen, die sie enthalten. Ihr denkt nur daran, zur alten und perversen Normalität zurückzukehren; deshalb sage ich euch: Entweder ihr ändert euer Verhältnis zur Natur und zu Mutter Erde, ein Verhältnis der Achtsamkeit, des Respekts vor ihren Grenzen, der Selbstbeschränkung eurer eigenen Gefräßigkeit, indem ihr euch tatsächlich als Teil der Natur und nicht als ihre angeblichen Besitzer fühlt, oder ihr werdet von noch tödlicheren Viren heimgesucht; ich warne euch: Einer von ihnen kann so resistent sein, dass er die völlige Unwirksamkeit der derzeitigen Impfstoffe zeigen würde, und ein großer Teil der Menschheit würde vom nächsten großen Virus, dem letzten und tödlichen, verschlungen werden. Die Erde und das Leben auf ihr, insbesondere das mikroskopische Leben, werden nicht untergehen. Die lebendige Erde wird weiterhin um die Sonne kreisen und sich regenerieren, aber ohne dich. Seid also auf der Hut, denn wir befinden uns in der Zeit des Countdowns. Die Natur ist eine Schule, aber ihr wolltet euch nicht einschreiben, und so ebnet ihr irrationalerweise den Weg, der zu eurer eigenen Zerstörung führt. Es ist trauroig zu erfahren, dass ich,  die Natur, rede, aber der Mensch hört mich nicht.  Ich sage nichts mehr.

Die Pandemie hat die Menschheit weltweit erfasst. Da es sich um ein globales Problem handelt, sollte die Lösung natürlich auch global sein, d. h. global diskutiert und entschieden werden. Wo gibt es ein pluralistisches und globales Zentrum für das Denken und die Suche nach Lösungen für globale Probleme?

Die UNO wird ihren Gründungszielen nicht gerecht, da sie sich in eine Organisation verwandelt hat, die die Interessen mächtiger Nationen vertritt, die insbesondere der Sicherheitsrat ein Vetorecht haben. Wir sind Geiseln der überholten Vision der nationalen Souveränität, die die neue Phase der Menschheitsgeschichte, die Planarisierung, noch nicht realisiert hat, die alle Nationen miteinander verbindet und sie alle ein gemeinsames Schicksal haben lässt.

Wir sitzen alle im selben Boot: Entweder sind wir alle gerettet oder niemand ist gerettet, wie Papst Franziskus warnte. Das ist die wahre Bedeutung von Globalisierung oder Planarisierung. Die Zeit der Nationen ist vorbei. Wir müssen ein gemeinsames Haus bauen, in das die verschiedenen Kulturnationen passen, die immer miteinander verflochten sind und ein einziges gemeinsames Haus bilden, einschließlich der Natur.

Die Pandemie hat deutlich gemacht, wie unmenschlich und grausam wir sein können: Die Reichen haben die Situation ausgenutzt und sind viel reicher geworden, während die Armen viel ärmer geworden sind. Die derzeitige Kultur ist wettbewerbsorientiert und sehr unkooperativ. Der Profit zählt mehr als das Leben.

Die Impfstoffe sind ungleich verteilt, so dass die Armen der Ansteckung und dem Tod ausgesetzt sind. Ein ganzer Kontinent mit mehr als einer Milliarde Menschen, Afrika, ist in Vergessenheit geraten. Kaum 10 % der Bevölkerung sind geimpft worden. Der Tod ist weit verbreitet, insbesondere bei Kindern, was auf die Gefühllosigkeit und Unmenschlichkeit unserer globalisierten Zivilisation zurückzuführen ist. Es ist die Herrschaft der Barbarei, die jeden Sinn für menschliche Zivilisation leugnet.

Kein Wunder, dass einige Analysten, insbesondere Biologen, fragen: Haben wir noch das Recht, auf diesem Planeten zu leben? Unsere Art zu sein, zu produzieren und zu consumieren bedrohen alle anderen Arten durch ihren Verzehr. Wir haben ein neues geologisches Zeitalter eingeläutet, das Anthropozän und sogar das Nekrozän, d. h. die große tödliche Bedrohung für das Leben auf diesem Planeten geht nicht von einem vorbeifliegenden Meteor aus, sondern von den barbarisierten Menschen, insbesondere in den wohlhabenderen Bevölkerungsschichten.

 Unter den Armen und Ausgegrenzten gibt es noch Menschlichkeit, Solidarität, gegenseitige Hilfe und die Sorge um das Gemeinwohl, wie sich in dieser Zeit der weltweiten Pandemie gezeigt hat.

Der Ausbruch von Covid-19 lädt zum Nachdenken ein: Warum sind wir an diesem Punkt angelangt, bedroht von einem unsichtbaren Virus, der die militaristischen Mächte und ihren phantasievollen imperialen Impuls in die Knie gezwungen hat? Wohin gehen wir? Was müssen wir ändern, wenn wir uns und unseren Nachkommen eine Zukunft sichern wollen?

Die globalen Billionäre (die 0,1 % der Menschheit) träumen von einer totalen Radikalisierung der Ordnung des Kapitals, die allen eine kybernetische Despotie aufzwingt, die alle Gegner überwacht und unterdrückt und ihren Reichtum garantiert. Der Magen von Mutter Erde wird eine solche Ungeheuerlichkeit nicht verdauen. Zusammen mit dem unverzichtbaren menschlichen Widerstand wird er ihre Ansprüche umstoßen und ihnen die ökologischen Grundlagen für dieses perverse Projekt entziehen, die sie nicht kontrollieren können.

Wie nie zuvor in der Geschichte hängt das Schicksal unseres Lebens von den Entscheidungen ab, die wir gemeinsam treffen müssen. Andernfalls werden wir den Weg kennen, den schon die Dinosaurier beschritten haben. Das wollen wir nicht. Aber wir befinden uns an einem Scheideweg.

*Leonardo Boff hat geschrieben: Cuidar la Tierra – proteger la vida: cómo escapar del fin del mundo, Record, Rio de Janeiro 2010; mit J. Moltmann, ¿Hay esperanza para la creación amenazada? Stimmen 2013.