Planet Earth Is Detoxing

It is difficult to extract a positive reading when a good part of our world is collapsing, and yet each one of us is capable of doing so: it is impressive how strong we are.

It impresses the courage of all the people who are taking care of us at this time, providing us with basic goods and services and doing everything possible for our sick people.

We still have to face very hard times. Faced with such a situation we want to show all our support and solidarity with the families who are having the worst time.

Unfortunately, we are all affected in one way or another. We never tire of saying that we need a model that puts people first; now, but also when all this is over, so that we do not have to regret so many losses.

People and the planet at the centre

More than ever we need to keep moving. If this health crisis is teaching us anything, it is to prioritize, to put the life and unity of our communities above all else.

That is why this is not the time for governments (at all levels) and large companies to take advantage of this situation to repeat the neoliberal recipes imposed since the 2008 crisis, where banks were rescued and not people.

Now is the time to react. We now know that the economic model on which each and every facet of our lives is based does not work.

It is not that we need a new economic model, it is that we need to profoundly transform the model we are immersed in for a model that puts people and the planet at the centre of all political and economic strategies and decisions.

A model that subordinates all life on earth to economic benefits does not work. On the contrary, what works is a model that operates to make life easier. Because the economic system itself needs that life...

We need to decrease in order to grow

In these turbulent moments, where reality devours us, we are going to put the most vulnerable people first.

And for this we need a change of system, to bet on a society where social and environmental justice are the main premises.

We are going to bet on all the initiatives that society has created over the years through agro-ecology, renewable community energy, zero waste, social economy and economic justice.

We will bet on a society where no one is left behind, where the most vulnerable people are not forced to make ends meet, to become homeless, to breathe polluted air, to work in precarious jobs, to have no healthy food and to have no time for their families.

We need to bet on green jobs, on an end to the over-exploitation of natural resources, the reduction of energy use.

We need to decrease in order to grow, to grow in equality, to grow in community, to grow in order to have more time for our people and to do what we really like.

This crisis cannot make us forget the other economic, social and environmental crises in which we find ourselves, and which come from the same cause: our model of production and consumption.

A model that preys on the most vulnerable people here and in the countries of the South, that preys on our ecosystems and destroys the natural resources we need for life, now and in the future.

In reality, the most appropriate solution to face this crisis of the coronavirus, and the rest of the crises, is to reinvent our societies, the way in which we relate between human beings and nature.

The current economic model does not work

Reorganizing will take time, and it will require a very measured transition. But once the state of alarm is over, it will be vital to make the right decisions to start this transition in earnest, to protect the general interest and not the private interests of a few.

This will require an end to the control that lobbies now exert over public decision-making, listening to the people and to science, who have been warning for years about the urgent need to radically transform our economic system.

The response that governments around the world are currently making to the COVID-19 shows us that they are capable of taking courageous action on the warnings of science and experts.

The solutions are already in our hands

The current crisis situation we are experiencing, both in terms of health and environmental and social issues, requires our governments to work together and cooperate to limit these threats that know no limits and affect the entire population.

For this reason, we should demand that our governments mobilize resources to alleviate social impacts and that they address a system change that ends existing inequalities and prioritizes the most affected and vulnerable people.

People have been mobilizing for years, showing the solutions that are already in our hands.

Now is the time to give voice to the people, to the general interest, and not to the individual interests of a few.