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    Last call for climate change and next pandemics
    Last call for climate change and next pandemics
    Last call for climate change and next pandemics
    E-book131 pagine1 ora

    Last call for climate change and next pandemics

    Di Franco Quercioli

    ()

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    [Edizione Inglese] Siamo vicini al collasso della nostra civiltà? La domanda può sembrare esagerata, ma non lo è affatto. Già l'attuale turbocapitalismo globalizzato sta distruggendo i tessuti sociali e tutti i principi di solidarietà. E non solo! Ne sono diretta conseguenza anche l'inquinamento, il riscaldamento globale, le disuguaglianze estreme, la povertà in crescita, la disoccupazione, il lavoro precario, le migrazioni epocali, le guerre, il terrorismo, la globalizzazione selvaggia … Ed ora il cambiamento climatico (anch'esso conseguenza delle attuali scelte socio-economiche) sta accelerando e ingigantendo i suoi tragici effetti, tanto da surclassare ogni altro problema mondiale. Se non fermeremo il riscaldamento del pianeta nel modo più drastico e più veloce possibile, molto presto ci troveremo in un ambiente gravemente ostile alla vita. Tanto che l'attuale corrente estinzione di massa potrebbe colpire anche la razza umana e a questo potrebbero contribuire anche le prossime probabili pandemie. Nel mio libro vi ripropongo anche l'appello per l'emergenza climatica, sottoscritto da più di 11.000 scienziati di 153 paesi, e pubblicato su BioScience il 5 Novembre 2019. E, sulla falsariga delle loro indicazioni, espongo una soluzione (che affronta contestualmente tutti i sopraelencati problemi, pandemie comprese) abbastanza utopistica, ma obbligata, se vogliamo davvero uscirne fuori.
    LinguaItaliano
    EditoreYoucanprint
    Data di uscita20 gen 2021
    ISBN9791220313797
    Last call for climate change and next pandemics

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      Anteprima del libro

      Last call for climate change and next pandemics - Franco Quercioli

      Quercioli

      LAST CALL FOR

      CLIMATE CHANGE

      AND NEXT PANDEMICS

      Preface

      Just two years ago (June 2018) I published another book (The Last Mission of Humanity, ed. YouCanPrint), in which I asked myself the same question that I asked on the fourth cover page of my new book: We are close to the collapse of our civilization?

      In the introduction I listed the causes and warning signs, unfortunately more and more evident:

      - Overpopulation

      - Extreme and growing inequalities

      - Poverty growing

      - Work is lacking more and more and, when it exists, it is increasingly precarious and underpaid

      - The ecological balance of the planet is increasingly compromised

      - Global warming (the result of pollution) causes desertification, melting glaciers and increasingly frequent climatic catastrophes

      - We are witnessing epochal migrations from the South of the World to industrialized countries

      - The winds of war are blowing stronger and more threatening everywhere

      In the sixth point of the list I had also put global warming and the consequent climate change, but at that time the cries of alarm of the scientists were not yet so pressing and final. So, while underlining the gravity and urgency of ecological problems, pollution and impending climate change, in that first book I dealt mainly with economic and social aspects (six causes and warning signs out of the eight listed).

      Then, just a year later, in August 2019, the explosion of the Greta Thunberg phenomenon and new further environmental catastrophes prompted me to publish a new edition of my book. However, despite a broader treatment of climate problems, even in the second version I have given priority to economic and social problems. After all, I thought (and still think) that if Humanity fails to solve the problems of inequality, poverty, work and dignity for all, it probably deserves to die out too.

      But, from the summer of 2018 to today (and even more from mid-2019), climate disasters have multiplied at a speed and with a severity that was previously unthinkable. The scientists themselves were surprised by these advances and revised their calculations and forecasts, warning several times that the time left for effective action is running out. The warming of the polar zones (especially arctic) is accelerating much more than in the rest of the world and is causing the rapid melting of ice and permafrost. Catastrophic effects, initially planned for the year 2100, are already appearing, 80 years in advance. Increasingly frequent and intense heat waves have caused apocalyptic fires in Australia, Siberia, California and many other parts of the world. And to complete the disaster, the terrible coronavirus pandemic spread at the beginning of 2020, probably a consequence of climate change, or at least certainly favored by current globalization.

      So, only a year after the second edition of my first book, in my new analysis I decided to focus first of all on the possible solutions of global heating, because now the time we have left to really implement interventions effective is only ten years. After this very short period of time, if we have not drastically changed our development model, the damage to the climate will be very serious, irreversible and above all capable of dramatically self-feeding. Scientists warn that climate change, in addition to causing natural disasters unimaginable today, is already causing the sixth mass extinction in the history of our planet (the fifth was that of the dinosaurs about 66 million years ago). And, this time, among the races destined to extinction, there could also be ours. Conclusion: it has become essential to solve this problem before any other.

      However, the causes of global warming are closely linked to the economic, social and political choices of the current system of capitalist development. And so I think it is at least instructive to propose here the premise I wrote in my first book:

      ******

      Before analyzing in depth the causes and possible solutions of this disarray of human civilization, I want to begin this book with a statement that gives us hope:

      Yes! We have all the knowledge, the ability and the means to save ourselves from the current self-destructive spiral!

      The problem lies in the boundless greed of many men, who are opposed by all means to any change in this situation. I'm talking about one percent of the world population, which has undoubtedly benefited from current economic choices. It is above all the big industrialists and financiers, but immediately followed by politicians and public administrators; of those in charge of leadership and coordination; the most capable and innovative professionals; of small and medium-sized industrialists and traders who, in addition to strong entrepreneurial skills, also have the gift of knowing where the market is headed ... Alongside these people (in many ways also positive), also scammers, individuals without scruples and real criminals, for whom a murky and ruthless society, like the current one, is a perfect breeding ground for their interests.

      All this variegated world of characters, in various capacities, arrived and winning, then constitutes a pyramid of power, organized in such a way as to guarantee stability and safety, especially for those who occupy the highest steps. For example, we can imagine that this pyramid has eight steps: at the base is one percent of the population, loyal and obedient to all those who are higher up, in order to maintain the economic benefits obtained in the last twenty years. In the second step we find one per thousand; to then continue towards the top of the pyramid, with denominators multiples of ten. In the eighth step we find one per billion: about 7 or 8 people who alone possess as much wealth as that possessed by the poorest half of the world population (data released by Oxfam in 2017).

      The 2017 Oxfam figures have been disputed by various quarters, but the fact remains that even if the number of billionaires, who alone own the wealth of 3.5 billion people, was 61 (instead of 8) in 2016, 42 in 2017 (as later corrected by Oxfam itself in the 2018 report) and finally 26 in 2018 (from the Oxfam 2019 report), the evident inequality would remain equally frightening and inadmissible. Most likely the correction of Oxfam's data (based on Credit Suisse research, which was corrected in 2018) then took place due to the aforementioned pressures and disputes; but the progressive rapid concentration of wealth in the hands of 80, then 61, then 42 and then 26 billionaires, in the span of just 4 years, still indicates its substantial correctness.

      It may seem that opposing this elite, which has occupied most of the top leadership and key positions of the entire planet, is at least illusory, if not impossible. But if we want to avoid an imminent economic, social and ecological catastrophe, we have no choice but to drastically re-establish the economic and social foundations of all humanity.

      In the two years it took me to write this book, the events described in this narrative have taken place at a truly pressing pace, forcing me to make numerous updates and changes in the course of work. In my arguments, up to 2018, I mainly dealt with the economic and social aspects, but the issues relating to both the depletion of resources and raw materials, as well as pollution and consequent climate change had to be kept in mind. And indeed (after finishing printing this book in July 2018) the phenomenon Greta Thunberg and her movement Fridays for Future appeared. Then, in the first 7 months of 2019, in addition to numerous extreme climatic events that also set new records, the melting of Arctic and Antarctic glaciers underwent a new dramatic acceleration. So the aspect of global warming and the consequent climate change suddenly became of primary importance and forced me to update the book with the latest news and considerations in this regard. And so we have come to August 2019,

      The first alarms were given as early as 1972, published in the book The limits of development, by a club of scientists, economists, politicians, cultural personalities and experts of all kinds (the Club of Rome). These predictions were then fully confirmed by the researchers themselves, first in 1992,

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