Confrontations in Copenhagen

Leonardo Boff

18/12/2009

Opinión

^-A ⁺A

In the discussions in Copenhagen about the rates of reduction of the gases that produce climatic change, two visions of the world confront each other: that of the majority of those who are outside of the Assembly, who come from all over the world, and the one of the few who are inside, who represent 192 states. These different visions are charged with consequence, signifying, in the end, the guarantee or the destruction of a common future.

Those who are inside fundamentally reaffirm the present system of production and consumption, even though they know this implies the sacrifice of nature and the creation of social inequalities. They believe that, with some regulation and controls, the machine can continue producing material growth and earnings as it did before the crisis.

But it must be said that it is precisely this system that is the main cause of global warming, because it emits annually 40 thousand million tons of pollutant gases. Planetary warming, disruption of nature, and social injustices around the world are considered externalities, that is to say, unintended consequences, and therefore, they do not enter in the general accounting of the states and enterprises. What is important, in short, is profit and having a positive GNP.

But, it so happens that these externalities are so threatening that they are destabilizing the Earth, revealing the failure of the neo-liberal economic model and putting the future of the human species in jeopardy.

It never occurs to the state representatives that the alternative is to switch to a production model that involves a synergic relationship with nature. To simply reduce carbon emissions, while continuing to plunder the Earth's resources, is like putting one's foot on someone's neck, and telling him: I want you to be free, but on condition that I keep my foot on your neck.

We must challenge the philosophy underlying this world view. It ignores the limits of the Earth, asserting that the human beings are essentially egocentric, and therefore cannot change; that they can dispose of nature as they want; that competition is natural; that by natural selection the weak are devoured by the strong, and that the market is the regulator of all economic and social life.

To the contrary, we reaffirm that human beings are essentially cooperative, because they are social beings, but they become egotistic when they break with their own essence. Giving centrality to egoism, as the capitalist system does, makes society with a human face impossible. A recent fact shows this: the poor have received 2 billion dollars in aid over fifty years, while the banks received 18 billion dollars in one year. Competition is not the central dynamic of the universe and of life. Rather, it is cooperation of all with all. Ever since genes, bacteria and virus were discovered to be the principal factors of evolution, natural selection can no longer function as before. Natural selection served as basis for social Darwinism. The market, through its internal logic, pits everyone against each other, and thus rips the social fabric. We postulate a society with a market, not a society of the market.

The other vision, that of the representatives of worldwide civil society, is sustaining: the situation of the Earth and of Humanity is so grave that only the principle of cooperation and a new relationship of synergy and respect towards nature will be able to save us. Without that we are headed towards the abyss that we ourselves have carved.

That cooperation is not just any other virtue. It is that which in another time allowed us to leave behind the animal world and inaugurate the human world. We are essentially cooperative and solidarian beings: without this, we devour each other. This is why economics must give way to ecology. We either make this change, or Gaia could continue without us.

The most immediate means of saving ourselves is to return to the ethic of caring, seeking work without exploitation, production without contamination, competition without arrogance and solidarity, starting with the weakest. This is the great leap that is called for at this moment. Starting there, the Earth and Humanity can reach an agreement that will save both.

- Leonardo Boff, Theologian, Earthcharter Commission

(Free translation from the Spanish, Melina Alfaro, Refugio del Rio Grande, Texas, EE.UU.)

https://www.alainet.org/en/articulo/138563