Continue an action known to threaten the future of the planet

Demonstrating that human activity threatens the planet is not enough to stop it. Far from it!

Tropical forests have long been known to play an important role in atmospheric oxygenation and CO2 capture; they continue to be massacred at the rate of once the surface of Costa Rica each year; Some countries are clearing up with giant plantations of young trees supposed to slow the process, even though artificial forests do not replace primary forests in terms of biodiversity.

It is also known that the ivory trade threatens the survival of elephants; After a period of decline, the African poachers regained their hands and the massacre began again. It is known that intensive fishing is in the process of eliminating fish species; Japan continues to send ships that decimate them by tens of thousands of tons to each shipment. Asbestos has proven to be a cause of lung cancer; This did not prevent Canada from encouraging its extraction and export to emerging markets. It has been known since the Stockholm Conference that carbon dioxide emissions cause global warming that could be fatal; New records are broken regularly. Some pesticides are known to be highly toxic and carcinogenic and continue to be manufactured and distributed in the air and water.

Example: Norwegian fish farms. Farmed salmon suffer, among other things, from a parasite called “pure de mer”. Breeders discharge diflubenzuron masses into the colonies, a pesticide with two metabolites, one toxic and the other carcinogenic. These Norwegian farmed fish, and even wild salmon that ingested the pesticide, are found the jaw blocked in an open position and the head covered with burns. As for those who consume them, they will still concentrate the doses. A shady picture that does not prevent the outbreak of aquaculture and shimmering sales in all European countries. Who would want to do without salmon on Christmas and New Year’s menus… See this for information.

It is not by denouncing the nuisance of an artifact that one manages to eradicate. This is why classical ecology struggles to change practices. There is always a part of the people or nations of the world ready to do anything to keep them, either by inertia or by interest. They are usually minorities motivated by financial gains. Unfortunately, small minorities are enough to launch huge projects, such as shale gas, offshore stations, oil palm plantations, etc.

But be careful: these minorities would not exist without consumers ready to pass a few euro savings before ecological wisdom. The roots of evil are therefore to some extent in the motivations of the industrialists, but even more so in those of the buyers, much more numerous. This is a mass phenomenon. In any case, it is the general psycho-affective positioning against the different values at stake that is decisive: mainly greed, selfishness, indifference to the nature or even the future of the species and the planet.

The only approach that gives hope to change the substance of things is to trace the root causes that determine the psycho-affective dispositions of individuals. Once these causes are clearly explained, and their ecological consequences highlighted, a general awareness is possible. In this way, a common will can emerge, going through humanity as a whole, to treat the evil at its source.