By LEONARDO BOFF*
Increasing global warming, favoring the uncontrolled spread of fire and mega-fires, could make the planet uninhabitable
Especially from 2023/2024 onwards, the Earth has been hit by major heat waves. They have caused mega-fires in many parts of the world. In 2024, the most devastating ones occurred in Brazil, in the Amazon, in the Pantanal, in the Cerrado and in several municipalities in the Southeast. The smoke made the air in São Paulo and Brasília almost unbreathable. The smoke spread across almost the entire south of the country.
Scientists have called this spread of fire across almost the entire planet the age of fire, the Pyrocene (red in Greek it is fire). Since time immemorial, human beings have taken direct control of this force of nature. They have learned to dominate fire. Now it is fire that dominates us. There are many causes, such as El Niño, the accumulation of CO2, methane and nitrous dioxide in the atmosphere, severe droughts, highly flammable grasses, organic material in and under the soil. In 2023 alone, 37,5 billion tons of CO were emitted into the atmosphere.2 which remains there for about a hundred years.
Since the pre-industrial era (1850-1900), billions of tons of greenhouse gases have been released into the atmosphere, totaling more than two trillion tons accumulated.
Fire has a long history. Thinking about the Earth's history 4,5 billion years ago, we know that for 800 million years the Earth remained as an immeasurable bubble of fire, melted like a thick soup bubbling with heat. It was an immense sea of molten and extremely hot lava. Vapors and gases formed immense clouds. For millions of years, these caused torrential rains without stopping, which helped the Earth cool down along with the immense ice meteors that torpedoed the planet for centuries. They considerably increased the volume of water to the point that the Earth is made up of 70% of this element.
The lava hardened and gave rise to the first soil with all kinds of mountains. The original fire settled in the heart of the Earth in a fluid form that is shown by volcanic eruptions and earthquakes. But it continued as a fundamental energy on the surface.
The current global warming, which has exceeded the projected 1,5 degrees Celsius by 2030, has come sooner, reaching 2 and even 3 degrees Celsius in some places. “I am terrified,” said our best climate scientist Carlos Nobre. The cause of this warming is the way in which the productivist-industrialist process has treated the Earth in recent centuries. It was considered to be without any purpose, a mere treasure chest of resources at the disposal of human beings. We can say that a real war was waged against the Earth, extracting everything that could be obtained from it.
It turns out that from the 1970s onwards, with research into Earth and life sciences, Lovelock and Margulis put forward the hypothesis that the Earth is a super living being that systematically articulates all the elements essential to life in such a way that it always remains alive and produces innumerable forms of life: biodiversity. They called it Gaia, one of the Greek names for Earth—life—which is now widely accepted by the scientific community.
Research into the state of the Earth from 1968 onwards (Club of Rome) considering the impact of human activity on the environment and the type of development that had been imposed on almost the entire planet, concluded that the Earth was sick. Limits were being imposed on growth that was considered unlimited without there being any awareness of the limits of the planet, incapable of supporting unlimited growth. This is demonstrated by the Earth Overshoot (Earth Overshoot), revealed annually by the UN.
However, the production system, whether in the capitalist or former socialist order, was and still is so well-oiled that it cannot be stopped. The consequences were felt early on, but especially from the 1970s to the present day: uncontrolled emission of greenhouse gases, degradation of ecosystems, erosion of biodiversity, increasing desertification, deforestation of large forests, contamination of soil and water with toxic agents.
This war waged by the productive process (producing, consuming, discarding) against Gaia represents a lost battle. The life-system, given the general degradation, the increase in CO2 and methane in the atmosphere, the global warming considered irreversible with its extreme events, and the perverse social inequality, has awakened the consciousness of many: either we change our lifestyle and our relationship with nature or we may no longer be loved by Mother Earth.
Generally, when a species in an ecosystem develops in an unregulated manner to the point of threatening the others, the Earth itself organizes itself in such a way as to limit or eliminate it. In this way, the other species can survive and continue to co-evolve in the global process of geogenesis. Perhaps this is the current situation of the human species in the Anthropocene era, despite the fact that the vast majority are still unaware and denialists.
The term coined by scientists, the Anthropocene, would describe humans as the meteor that flies by, the greatest threat to the biosphere. Instead of assuming the role of its caretaker, they have become its exterminating angel. The Pyrocene would be the most dangerous and destructive form of the Anthropocene. Increasing global warming, favoring the uncontrolled spread of fire and mega-fires, could make the planet uninhabitable.
The acute shortage of drinking water, the frustration of food production, and the overheating of the climate would slowly lead the human species to its extinction. Like everything that begins in evolution, develops, reaches its climax and disappears. This is the case with galaxies, stars and living beings. Why would it be any different with the human species?
We burst onto Earth when 99,98% of the Earth's surface had already been formed. The Earth did not need our presence to create its immense biodiversity. Without us, the life of the quadrillions of quadrillions of microorganisms that work underground would carry out the project of life. The Earth would continue to revolve around the sun, under its beneficent light, but without us.
Those who dare to take the leap of faith would say that only the earthly stage of human beings has been irresponsibly completed. A new one would begin on another level. After time comes eternity. In it, we would continue to live in a form that remains ineffable to us. But life would be perpetuated.
*Leonardo Boff is an ecologist, philosopher and writer. Author, among other books, of Sustainability: What it is — What it is not (Vozes). [https://amzn.to/4cOvulH]
the earth is round there is thanks to our readers and supporters.
Help us keep this idea going.
CONTRIBUTE
