By MICHAEL LÖWY*
Are we going to the seventh circle of hell?
The climate crisis has already begun. Each year is the hottest on record. We see it in the news every day: huge forest fires, floods and droughts, crop failures, endangered species, disappearing rivers, regions of the planet where rising temperatures make any activity impossible, etc. There are more and more victims in the four corners of the planet.
Most humans experience the onset of global warming at some point each year. Where are we headed? The election of climate change denier Donald Trump as president of the United States could exacerbate the danger.
Scientists admit that their predictions so far have been too optimistic. The process of climate change is progressing much faster than expected. Dramatic events are likely to occur not at the end of the century, but in the coming decades. Here are some examples:
(i) The melting of the polar ice caps and the rise in sea levels. Everything is accelerating, whether in Greenland or Antarctica. And the sea level is rising inexorably. If all the ice melts, this rise could reach 80 meters. Just one or two meters is enough for the major coastal cities of human civilization – Venice, Amsterdam, London, New York, Rio de Janeiro, Shanghai – to disappear into the sea.
(ii) The melting of the glaciers of the Alps, the Himalayas, etc. At first, this will cause immense floods. At a later stage, the great rivers will disappear. Where will we find water to drink?
(iii) Global warming, forest fires, disappearing rivers and drought are causing desertification of land. Agriculture will be impossible in large areas of desert.
(iv) Rising temperatures will make vast areas uninhabitable. How high could this increase go? At what temperature will human life – and that of many other species – be threatened?
Na Divine Comedy, Dante Alighieri describes the condition of the damned in the 7º Circle of Hell as follows: they wander across a vast expanse of arid, burning sand, subject to a rain of flames.
Is this the future that awaits us? If we allow the continuation of business as usual, we cannot exclude this evolution.
However, contrary to what the so-called “collapsologists” claim, the future has not yet been written. The fatalists who loudly proclaim that the die is cast contribute, with their inertia, to the fatal outcome. Struggle, resistance and system change are possible. But it is urgent. Let us begin with blockade: stop, prevent and dismantle the most obvious ecocidal projects. Have as a horizon the project of changing civilization, breaking with the modern industrial capitalist system.
Are the obstacles immense? Is the enemy powerful? Is awareness of what is at stake not widespread? Certainly, but our ancestors faced similar challenges when they confronted absolute monarchy, slavery or fascism. As Bertolt Brecht summed it up: those who fight may lose, those who do not fight have already lost.
*Michae Lowy is director of research in sociology at Center nationale de la recherche scientifique (CNRS). Author, among other books, of Franz Kafka unsubmissive dreamer (Cem Cabeças Publisher) [https://amzn.to/3VkOlO1]
Translation: Fernando Lima das Neves.
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