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We’ve all heard that when the Titanic was sinking, the
orchestra continued playing waltzes. In no time all musicians and dancers had disappeared
under the water. Let’s do whatever it takes to avoid the same thing from
happening at a planetary scale. Despite countless alarms and appeals, the
plutocratic neoliberal governance continues to take clearly inadequate and
partial measures, instead of the strong, urgent and joint action that is
needed. Big corporations are still earning huge benefits and misleading people
when they should take the lead in the promotion of change and citizenship
awareness. And while diffidently
expressing their support for ecological measures and the implementation of the
2030 Agenda, Great Powers are investing bigger amounts in weapons and military
expenses, thus stressing their disagreement with “contending powers”, when they
should at least take an emergency break to allow the joint and global action
that is urgently needed to avoid further deterioration of the habitability of
the Earth. And, as a result of the above, a larger number of war devises are
being stocked -including nuclear artefacts, what a nonsense!-, thus investing
-I must insist once again- 4,000 million dollars per day, while thousands of
people are dying from hunger and extreme poverty, most of them girls and boys
ranging from one to five years old.
It is sensible to have
appropriate defence mechanisms... but the defence of people living in those
well-protected areas must not be disregarded. The United Nations have
appropriately identified five major priorities: food, drinking water, quality
health services, lifelong education for everyone, looking after the
environment. I must stress once again that this new concept of human security
must prevail now, without delay. It would allow us to solve many of the big
global problems we are facing today: forced migration, the impact of natural
disasters, the globalization of ignorance... For decades, the UNESCO (the
International Union for the Conservation of Nature, the Geological, Hydrological
and Oceanographic Programs, “Man and the Biosphere”, the ecological
reserves...); the Club of Rome (“Growth Limits”...); the USA Academy of
Sciences (1979); the first “Earth Summit” (Rio de Janeiro, 1992); the Charter
of the Earth in 2000; the second “Summit” in 2002 in Johannesburg... have made
increasingly urgent appeals, always unheard by the GDP governance, which
despises multilateralism and encourages supremacism.
In the “hopeful autumn” of
2015, with the democrat President Barack Obama in the White House, it became
possible to sign -in the General Assembly of United Nations- the Paris
Agreements on Climate Change and the Resolution to “transform the world” whose
aim was the urgent implementation of the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable
Development Goals. These were two particularly relevant and appropriate
documents because they requested - at last! - from global citizenship, who was
now aware of the seriousness of the situation, to take appropriate and
responsible actions for future generations.
But, a few months later, the
astonishing Donald Trump became President of the United States, endorsing every
hegemonic assumption of the Republican Party, and making it clear - with an
unusual vigour and alacrity - that he would not implement the Paris agreements
nor the 2030 Agenda... And everyone remained silent. The rest of the world
remained silent. And he European Union, once a source and an example of
solidarity, democracy and multilateralism, was unable to oppose his statements,
because the adoption of far-reaching resolutions sometimes requires
unanimity... and unanimity is the opposite of democracy! And nothing was done
until the arrival of the democratic duo Biden-Harris, six years later... The
Arctic is already melting by leaps and bounds and the "permafrost"
not only entails the disappearance of the "mirror" that reflects the
sun's rays but also the release of large quantities of methane, which is much
more pollutant than carbon dioxide... And the Antarctic is beginning to crack
and the glaciers are shrinking... And, most alarming of all, despite the action
of laudable civil associations, the world as a whole continues to be caught in
the economic web of production relocation, energy sources, tax havens... with
growing social gaps.... We are becoming closer and closer to the abyss of
irreversible processes, which would entail leaving behind a wrongful and
irretrievable legacy for our descendants. In the 1960s Aurelio Piccei already
warned: “Chasm ahead!”.
“We the peoples, ... are
determined to save future generations from the scourge of war". This is
how the Charter of the United Nations begins, with as much clarity as capacity
to foresee the future. Because, in 1945, the peoples didn’t yet exist. 90% of
humanity was born, lived and died in a few square kilometres, thus ignoring
what was going on beyond their immediate environment, always placed under the
absolute male power. They were obedient, fearful, silent, they had no voice and
could not express their opinions. But today, for the first time in history -and
there lies our hope- they can express themselves. Mankind now has a voice of
its own and the mass media at their disposal. And today - we must insist on
this - all human beings are equal in dignity, with no discrimination based on
gender, sexual sensitivity, ideology, beliefs, ethnicity... Now, at last,
"We, the peoples" can demand, through great popular clamours, a
democratic multilateral governance, whose first decision must be the adoption
of the "Universal Declaration on Democracy" and which, having the
support of Great Powers, should firmly redirect the current trends.
Only thus will the G-20
meetings in Rome and the Ecological Summit in Glasgow be able to achieve their
pressing objectives. Only thus will we dare look into the eyes of those who
come within a stone's throw of us and tell them: “We have behaved as "free
and responsible” individuals, as the UNESCO Constitution defines educated
people. We will first have to overcome the resistance of so many... And to alert
those who, despite the countless appeals, still remain distracted and
obfuscated, carelessly dancing as if nothing was happening ... as in the wreck
of the Titanic...
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