The planet is extinguishing, so is our time
Fires, floods, droughts, glacial melting, tsunamis. The earth screams before the indiscriminate looting of the extractivist corporations. Greenhouse gasses are asphyxiating and extinguishing our planet. The governments, representatives of the polluters, deny global warming and try to convince us that this is a natural phenomenon. It is all based on fracking, agribusiness, megamining and indiscriminate cementation, productive modalities that attack the life and biodiversity of our ecosystems.
If the Amazon were a bank, the system would have already saved it
The Amazon represents 25% of South American territory, shared by eight countries. It contains the greatest reserves of drinkable water in the planet. Home to 420 ethnic groups, 34 million inhabitants and hundreds of thousands of animal and plan species. It represents a little over half of the rainforests of the planet, that is why it is symbolized as the lung of the Earth, key for the generation of oxygen and humidity.
This sanctuary of biodiversity is being devoured by illegal hunting, contaminating mines, deforestation and the fires of the livestock companies and the agribusiness, that scorch a surface similar in size to the Maracana stadium every minute. The rivers of the region are polluted. In the last 50 years, 1300 tons of mercury, used in the illegal mining that Bolsonaro wants to legalise, have been spilled in the Amazon River and its branches. According to the UNESCO, the planet is heading towards a water deficit of 40% in 2030. Bolsonaro, Evo Morales, Macri and the entire political power take profits from extractivism in their countries. For us to have a habitable country, they must go. Struggling for the prohibition of deforestation, agribusiness and polluting mining. To truly know the truth on the causes and who is responsible of the current environmental disaster, we need an independent investigative committee. The corporations must be held responsible for the necessary environmental remediation and States must declare a climate emergency to stop this ecocide.
It´s not you, it´s not me: it´s capitalism
The world is being destroyed. The capitalist system and its roster of churches blame us for the ecocide they cause. The mass media blame the youth and the workers for what we eat, for wasting water, for not separating our trash, for using plastic. We are the “negligent neighbours”. Undoubtedly, individual actions are essential and they are a first step of awareness, but it is not enough: it is necessary to organise against the actual perpetrators, that is, this system of anarchic production of private accumulation that generates artificial needs and promotes irrational consumption. As a system of economic, social and political organization, it is exhausted. Its only way to survive is at the expense of the destruction of the planet.
That is why we are thousands of youth and environmental activists across the world that protest, demanding a change of paradigm, because if the system does not give us an answer, we must change the system.
From the Ecosocialist Network and the MST, we have an alternative proposal: prohibiting every contaminating method; an agrarian reform to end with the monopoly of our land; reorganising production according to social needs with the control and leadership of workers and the social majorities, and guaranteeing a work reconversion with the same level of economic rights. And in order to decide everything, activating participative mechanisms like referendums, this means real democracy to define public policies. This is our path. On September 27, let’s become a great green wave in self defence. The time is now.
MST y Red Ecosocialista de Argentina