A POSTCAPITALIST PARADIGM: THE COMMON GOOD OF ...

The climate crisis
The climate crisis is well recognized and, every day, information becomes
increasingly precise, thanks to the various conferences of the
United Nations on the climate, on biodiversity, on glaciers, etc. Here we
shall just briefly sum up the situation. While the present development
model is emitting greenhouse gases (especially CO2), the carbon sinks
- that is, the natural places where these gases are absorbed, particularly
forests and oceans - are being destroyed. In addition, the destruction of
ecosystems through the massive application of chemical products,
monocultures, exploitation of natural resources like oil, gas and minerals
are producing irreversible damage which can even affect the climate.
There are two more aspects that are not always sufficiently emphasized.
The first is the ‘ecological debt’. Since the beginning of mercantile capitalism,
the natural resources of the South have been exploited at enormous
human and ecological cost. The ‘externalities’ of this plundering
have been borne exclusively by the colonized regions. The political independence
of these countries did not change the logic of the relationship.
Over the last few years, the land grabbing and over-exploitation of
mines to satisfy the needs of the North have accelerated, causing ecological
disasters, not to mention social conflicts. Thus the ecological debt
must be taken into account in the external public and private debt of the
countries of the South. It is only fair that the consumers of products that
have been extracted from the South should be the ones to pay the consequences
of these ‘externalities’ (ecological and social damages). Indeed,
in this way, they really have contracted a debt. The other aspect
is the ecological costs of military activities. First, wars are extremely
wasteful and affect nature by the ecological destruction caused by
bombing, the utilization of chemical products 4 and CO2 emissions.
Moreover, the production of armaments involves using materials that
4 Agent Orange, used during the Vietnam war to destroy forests where the guerrillas
were fighting in the South, is still causing – forty years later – a huge amount of
destruction and affects thousands of children who are born with deformities because
of the accumulation of toxic products.
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