We Must, But Can We?

We need a radical change to save the world. But achieving it through politics seems harder and harder.

Photo by Muhammad Numan on Unsplash

Watching climate conferences like the COP26, you can’t help but get a little pessimistic.

There’s a lot of “we need to do this or everything will fall apart” and very little acknowledging the real responsibilities we all have in helping not destroy the world. Tune in to the news these days, and you’ll see countries act like your friend who stopped using plastic straws in their plastic Starbucks cup and now thinks they’ve saved the oceans.

Argentina is one example. President Fernández’s speech in Glasgow was a perfect exercise in empty words. Lots of demands for the world, while Argentina itself doesn’t really even have a real climate agenda. Political efforts are still focused on producing more beef to keep citizens happy, so much so that the price of meat has been a major issue in this year’s Congressional midterm elections. Renewable energies received a bit of a push prior to the pandemic, but so did fossil fuels. Petroleum production just reached record levels only two months ago. The Fernández government has shown little interest in investing in greener energy or food in the future, and is even negotiating a deal for large-scale pork production with China. To top it off, today it…