Today is International Mother Earth Day, but we live in a world so artificial that we cannot understand in its entirety the complex and close bond of dependency that Humanity has with the planet. This goes far beyond the environmental impact that we generate with our polluting emissions and waste. What we eat, the vehicles in which we move, the household appliances and the wide variety of manufactured products that we use, as well as the houses in which we live, are the result of complex transformations of materials and energy that are given to us in one way or another. otherwise nature.
In our highly industrialized and globalized world, Mother Earth continues to be the real guarantee of the functioning of the system and if she is not capable of providing the crop fields, minerals, metals, energy…what we need, our way of life will be seriously compromised. Many trust in the surprising capacity of ecosystems to renew themselves, and in the potential of technology to continue extracting resources and trust that “Mother Earth” can replenish them, supporting the growth and development of the planet as up to now; In the last century, per capita consumption of materials has doubled, the amount of energy has tripled, and the world population has quadrupled.
However, the fair and non-negotiable demands to improve the living conditions of a large part of Humanity that claims their rights to a dignified life, together with the worrying evolution of some socio-environmental trends (climate change process in which we are submerged, the strong fluctuations observed in the prices of raw materials, the deforestation of primary forests, loss of biodiversity) are more than evident signs that things are not going the way they should and that the sustainability of the planet is seriously compromised.
“Verifying” our economy is not just an occurrence of the most sensitive ecologists, it is an urgent social need to guarantee that our planet has a future and that the generations that will follow us will have the necessary resources to develop. To do this, there are three main processes that will have to be synchronized. In the first place, it is necessary to advance in a new consumption model in which “more is not synonymous with better“, in which “reuse is the rule and not the exception” and in which “waste is not considered”, because at the end of its useful life, all the materials return to the production cycle.
Secondly, the production systems driven by the “new consumer” have to escape the innovation-consumption spiral and walk in the dynamics of eco-innovation directed to improve the quality of life of people, improving the environment throughout the complete life cycle of products and services.
Finally, and almost as a corollary to the previous processes, we have to guarantee that the Earth maintains a net balance of resources, renewing itself and becoming richer, and this is only possible by extracting fewer resources with the commitment and solidarity of all countries and especially developed countries.
Building a green world economy capable of meeting the needs of Humanity without harming the planet is the great challenge facing our civilization. It is a challenge in which we are all necessarily involved and the celebration of Mother Earth Day is very good to remind us of our obligations in a friendly way.