- tHERAPY Recycle & Exorcise
2019: dystopic images from a present future
(Versión en castellano debajo)
2019... Doesn't it sounds like future?
If you are from our generation (born end of the seventies, beginning of the eighties), you will probably agree with us that the word future is connected in our minds with dystopic landscapes.
It is probably because of all those movies we watched and the books we read.
Because of those images, we can only visualize a failed, broken future. A future with no future.
A PLASTIGLOMERATE - Aaikevanoord [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], from Wikimedia Commons.
1984 is already gone, and 2049 hansn't arrived yet. But we have 2019, and the figures nobody is talking about could be well be part of the first fifteen minutes of a dystopic movie.
There are things though, that are slightly different from those movies and books. It is the fact that there is not one wise, visionary savior coming to rescue us one second before the explotion. Or an underground guerilla group, but actually a good bunch of awaken people all around the globe. A lot of people that knows what is happening, and spread the voice and engage themselves.
There is a lot of people that got tired of being abused by a system that wants us occupied on earning money and fighting with each other in facebook groups for the illusion of the biggest piece of cake.
If this people would join forces and all of them would become activists, the dystopic movie script would lose sense.
Our grandparents lived on the notion of sacrifice. Economical progress and some relative political stability (or the lack of it), made of our parents and older siblings in the eighties and nineties big lovers of property and accumulation of capital as the "only secure thing you can have". Many people continue to think like that in the two thousands. Some of us after watching as big-eyed kids some serious property loss happen to our parents (Argentina, 2001, Greece, 2007-2008, USA, 2008, Spain, 2009), became detached hedonists.
To a greater or lesser degree, we are children of our environment, and in one way or another, we are all searching for the same: a sense for our existences. Nobody to blame.
Now today, at the beginning of 2019, when we manage so much information, we could learn some things from history and open our eyes and ears for things nobody really "important" is talking or doing much about.
We cast a vote for a new awakening. Because we would have ourselves and noone else to blame if we don't do anything now that we manage all this information. And you (sorry to ruin your naivity) are involved from the moment you read this. If you are still in 2019 a lover of property, not caring much about "hippie-community-ideas", consider that this is for your own good. Cos your property will go to hell along with your nice modern haircut, freaky nails and latest nikes if you don't care.
Despite what the economical system we live in has taught us (or despite the ignorance it tries to keep us in), we are not separate entities. We are not separated from each other and we are not separated from nature.
We should start finding that sense of life in the togetherness.
The moment has come for us to understand, we won't get far stepping on each other's heads.
We live in big communities because we actually like being together and it makes it all much easier for us in order to survive. (54 per cent of the world’s population lives in urban areas, we will reach 66 per cent by 2050. Almost 4 billion people (out of 7,67 billion and counting....) live in cities. (Source)
And foremost we need nature to survive.
But we have been so occupied the last hundred years in organising our big communities, in sacrificing ourselves, enjoying ourselves, to finally try to like ourselves, that we have grown separated from nature to such an extent that we believe nature is a nice decoration for our cities and our backyards.
NATURE is in everything we own and consume. It all comes from nature. Have we forgotten that?
YES, PEOPLE HAVE FORGOTTEN THAT. Can you believe it? This is where we feel inside a dystopic movie.
If you don't believe us, please read this article summarising World Wildlife Fund's Living Planet Report 2018:
"In 45 years, we have killed 60% of Earth’s wildlife" Condé Nast Traveller
On WWF's 2016 Living Planet Report introduction, you can read and learn more:
"BETWEEN 1970 AND 2012. THE MOST COMMON THREAT TO DECLINING ANIMAL POPULATIONS WAS THE LOSS AND DEGRADATION OF HABITAT.
BY 2012, THE BIOCAPACITY EQUIVALENT OF 1.6 EARTHS WAS NEEDED TO PROVIDE THE NATURAL RESOURCES AND SERVICES HUMANITY CONSUMED IN THAT YEAR.
HUMANS HAVE ALREADY PUSHED FOUR PLANETARY SYSTEMS BEYOND THE SAFE LIMIT OF THEIR SAFE OPERATING SPACE.
INCREASINGLY, PEOPLE ARE VICTIMS OF THE DETERIORATING STATE OF NATURE: WITHOUT ACTION THE EARTH WILL BECOME MUCH LESS HOSPITABLE TO OUR MODERN GLOBALIZED SOCIETY.
Good news is, we just need to change our understanding of things and our actions and the planet may survive. At this point, 2019, are still on time, but not for longer: A SHARED UNDERSTANDING OF THE LINK BETWEEN HUMANITY AND NATURE COULD INDUCE A PROFOUND CHANGE THAT WILL ALLOW ALL LIFE TO THRIVE IN THE ANTHROPOCENE.
A BASIC UNDERSTANDING MUST INFORM DEVELOPMENT STRATEGIES, ECONOMIC MODELS, BUSINESS MODELS AND LIFESTYLE CHOICES: WE HAVE ONLY ONE PLANET AND ITS NATURAL CAPITAL IS LIMITED."
(Source: WWF. 2016. Living Planet Report 2016: Summary. WWF, Gland, Switzerland, page 2)
FROM HOLOCENE TO ANTHROPOCENE
The dystopia we talked about has arrived. We live a new Geological Epoch.
Is the first time you hear talking about the "Anthropocene Epoch"? It it for us. It seems we have abandoned the Holocene epoch and entered a twilight zone called Anthropocene, where the course of nature, the Earth's geology and ecosystems, including climate, are defined by human impact, starting with the Industrial Revolution. (Some scientists say it started with development of agriculture, which ovelaps completely the Holocene).
Did you hear about plastiglomerates? Of course not, because the BBC, CNN, FOX, N24, ZDF, ARD, TN, ABC, The Guardian, NBC, RTL, ECNS, TVE, RAI... are not talking about it. (I found only Science Magazine, CBS and HuffPost talked about plastiglomerates).
A plastiglomerate is a stone that contains mixtures of sedimentary grains, and other natural debris (e.g. shells, wood) that is held together by hardened molten plastic. It did not exist in nature until the mid-twentieth century, so it has been proposed as a geological marker of the Anthropocene. The plastiglomerate may remain in the distant future as a solid imprint of human beings on the face of the Earth.(Source)
At some more terrible issues like species extinction we have reached a point of no return. "Humankind has entered what is sometimes called the Earth's sixth major extinction. Most experts agree that human activities have accelerated the rate of species extinction. The exact rate remains controversial – we have accelerated perhaps 100 to 1000 times the normal background rate of extinction.
The most recent period of the Anthropocene has been referred to as the Great Acceleration during which the socioeconomic and earth system trends are increasing dramatically, especially after the Second World War." (World Wildlife Fund's Living Planet Report 2018, page 23)
AND NOBODY IS TALKING ABOUT IT
"In 2016, the University of Oxford carried out an experiment: imagine if the 24-hour news cycle fell silent. Instead news came out once every 50 years. What would the 2018 headline be?
The rise of neoliberalism? The internet? Civil rights? The financial crisis? Probably none of these.
The biggest single phenomenon in the last 50 years is barely discussed in the media, politics, business or education circles. It is the Great Acceleration:
Bryanmackinnon [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], from Wikimedia Commons / https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Acceleration
Bryanmackinnon [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], from Wikimedia Commons / https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Acceleration
Since the industrial Revolution (1800), global population has grown sevenfold, and the global economy has grown 30-fold 30. But it was actually only in the last 50 years when economic development has driven a phenomenal increase in the demand for energy, land and water. This is changing fundamentally the Earth’s operating system.
This growth has improved the lives of billions of people. Our global average life expectancy is over 70. Diseases have been eradicated and others look set to follow soon. More children reach adulthood and fewer women die during childbirth. Poverty is at an historic low. All this we should celebrate.
However, these improvements of the Great Acceleration have come at a huge cost to the stability of the natural systems that sustain us. Our impact now is interfering profoundly with Earth’s atmosphere, ice sheets, ocean, forests, land and biodiversity. Greenhouse gas emissions have risen at alarming rates.
This are dystopian news: "In April 2018, levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere reached an average of 410 parts per million (ppm) across the entire month – the highest level in at least 800,000 years. 20% of the Amazon, referred to as the lungs of the planet, has disappeared in just 50 years."
Please see the graphic on pages 24,25: "Human activities (left panels) begin to interfere significantly with Earth’s life support system (right panels)."
THE PROBLEM IS OUR CONSUMPTION
Thanks to technology and modern land management practices, biocapacity has increased about 27% in the past 50 years. But it has not kept pace with human consumption: humanity’s Ecological Footprint has increased about 190% over the same time period.
Of course natural resources are unevenly distributed and consumption patterns are different from country to country. Please see the graphics on pages 30, 32, 33. Check what is the footprint of the consumption in your country and get amazed or confirm your suspicion.
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