The economist and professor Joan Martínez Alier has just received from the Norwegian Government the international Holberg prize, one of the most prestigious interdisciplinary recognitions in the social sciences, with which his contributions to ecological economics, political ecology and environmental justice are recognized. . The award serves as a prelude to the continuation of two previous articles of mine published in this same newspaper, about the mania of our societies to grow economically. If in the previous ones I was referring to why grow and for whom, today it is time: with what natural resources?
Briefly and synthetically, the growth of the last nearly 300 years in the developed world has been achieved thanks to an industrial economy that has rested on colossal technological and technical progress, which has made us believe that we are the kings of the world. planet, that we have it at our service, without regard to anything or other living beings. Yes, we have increased wealth and well-being, but based on exploiting the land without restrictions, considering obtaining goods but forgetting the generation of damage, without thinking about future generations, as if resources were infinite, and the planet, a freely available landfill.
Said synthetically, according to the schemes of the ecological economy, we have grown from the energy of fossil fuels (a non-renewable resource) and from materials such as metals (also non-renewable). We have burned fossil fuels and continue to burn them, so the energy dissipates (and emits greenhouse gases); We extract the materials, we generate huge amounts of waste to obtain them, we use them and we do not recycle them more than a meager 10%. There are other expressions of resources that have been put at the service of growth without much respect for the planet, renewable but often overexploited, such as water and fishing resources or the excessively intensive use of farmland.
The human voracity to extract rents from natural resources has no limits. Only public administrations could establish them by regulating use. But reaching global agreements on a planetary scale is a chimera. We want more of everything, we look at the short term and we do not agree when dividing up the cost of respecting the planet. However, none of this exempts us from the responsibility of acting at a local and regional level in order to encourage the use of renewable energy and the recycling of materials and water; put a price with taxes and rates on the generation of waste and the emissions that generate environmental problems, and restrict the extraction of rents from the territory.
Perhaps it is a cry in the desert, but we can ignore that we have grown in wealth and well-being based on mistreating the planet, and that this will take its toll both on those who come after us and on our generation. Growing up yes, but leaving the planet in the sweat of death?
