- 2 days ago
👉 DO YOU AGREE WITH WHAT WE PUBLISH? SO DON'T JUST STOP AT LIKES.
We are OZ Nová Ľavica. Membership is for liberal / libertarian leftists (we verify this with a political compass).
💶 Membership: min. €5 twice a year.
Passive membership also makes sense - every small financial support really helps us. We do not require any mandatory activities!
👉 If you agree with us and want a change, write us a message/e-mail.
More: https://nova-lavica.sk/
_______________________________________
🛑 Are you being bullied at work, but are you afraid to speak up?
We help with unions and cooperatives discreetly and without obligation. You can also write anonymously.
👉 If you want to know what can be done at your place of work, contact us.
We are OZ Nová Ľavica. Membership is for liberal / libertarian leftists (we verify this with a political compass).
💶 Membership: min. €5 twice a year.
Passive membership also makes sense - every small financial support really helps us. We do not require any mandatory activities!
👉 If you agree with us and want a change, write us a message/e-mail.
More: https://nova-lavica.sk/
_______________________________________
🛑 Are you being bullied at work, but are you afraid to speak up?
We help with unions and cooperatives discreetly and without obligation. You can also write anonymously.
👉 If you want to know what can be done at your place of work, contact us.
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00hello everybody here is michael from new left and today i have very interesting guys i'm looking
00:21forward to this because this will be the first time in our history as a as an interview my history
00:27as an interviewer that i will be talking to someone from central slash south america so totally the
00:34different size of our planet and well uh i'm here with gretel gretel please introduce yourself
00:42shortly who you are what you do yeah thank you very much for having me today uh as you said i am
00:49from costa rica but based in santiago in chile so yes central america slash south america i was
00:56trained at the university as a political ecologist um i started as international relations but then
01:03i follow up mostly um the field of political ecology that i think we will talk more about it during the
01:11interview and now i am assistant professor at the university thank you so the first question i have
01:19because i mean it's always interesting to know how it came to be that you became who you are
01:24so you know what were the breaking points what were the aha moments that you decided as a young
01:30person that yeah this is the path at least for the time being who knows what will happen now but
01:35for the couple of years uh in the past that you wanted to be what you are you know what what were the
01:41as i said aha moments that it made you who you are yeah because you could have been a lawyer you
01:47could have been you know whatever yeah i've been a environmental lawyer for instance yes
01:53no thank you very much for the question because i think it's important to know uh what's behind no
01:58a researcher or a professional and um i will start by saying that my relation with the environment
02:05began very early in my life um i believe actually what was i said no that we cannot really separate
02:12our personal experiences from our professional or academic uh paths and in my case my grandfather
02:20for instance um he was an indigenous peasant and from a very young age i would go with him early in
02:27the morning to milk the cow to plant to harvest and i think that relations with him with him for instance
02:35since very early uh started like uh for me to be very important to know how do we relate with nature
02:42so you grew up in some village so you because you know in cities milking cows isn't exactly what you do
02:49in the morning so yeah well exactly you know um i was raised in the city in san jose the capital of
02:56costa rica but my grandfather used to live in the south nearly the border with panama so i think
03:02my holidays like three months holidays work with them so i think in my experience i had these two
03:10like worldviews no living in the city going to the school and everything in a very small apartment but
03:16then going to the to the village with my grandfather and my grandmother and they really were uh i mean
03:23well my my grandfather is is not alive yet but my grandmother is but i mean these relations with
03:30nature start very early in my life and then when i entered the university um i really wanted to
03:37study that like how we humans relate with the environment the thing is that if you see um when
03:43you are choosing a career or something you don't really see these relations you have like biology or
03:48ecology and then you have sociology or political science but i really wanted to merge it together
03:55so i found not in undergraduate but in the master degree the field of political ecology that really
04:03uh give me a lot of uh answers of the questions i had in how we were lucky that you were able to
04:10study it i'm not an expert but i don't think that it's possible in every country even in european
04:16union so yeah lucky you that it was offered it was offered in the masters in the masters um and then
04:23i actually was not offered in costa rica i flew i went to ecuador at flaxo when the the the field was
04:31really bull joining in that regard and then i continued with the phd so i found that in
04:37environmental sociology political ecology those fields of study um i think are very important not
04:43because they are interdisciplinary because as you might know the environmental crisis is not only
04:50environmental it's not only ecological it's also political so i think those fields uh are interesting
04:55to look at in terms of how to um provide answers to the poly crisis in which we are today
05:02no definitely so that leads to the big complicated i mean what i'm thinking about as a leftist i i i see
05:11european union and america as one part of the i don't know mathematical thing and the other part is
05:19south america and that's what uh we were discussing before the interview and we're talking about the
05:25possible question is that what do you think is it might it happen that actually who saves us
05:31sort of will be south america because exactly as you were describing you are closer to the nature at
05:37least maybe you are not and just no i've never been to south america so i can't really say much about
05:42it but there's at least in my mind picture that you you you are closer to the nature so you are more
05:48aware how fucking crazy we are and uh this awareness hopefully leads to some action and when i was kind
05:58of reaching out to you that's what's the main motivation that i've seen data that some south
06:03american countries are actually leading in the ecological movements and as sustainability goes you
06:10are well even better than rich countries here in in european union so obviously something is right
06:19in south america and the question is you know is it in your blood is it something that you can bring
06:25us to to europe or or what is it about that that that this consciousness is there yeah yeah thank you
06:33um i wouldn't say that there's like a region in which you're genetically you know born like this uh
06:40taking care of the environment but the hypothesis that you have said that if you are much closer to
06:46nature of course you learn no more how to take care of it and this is uh plenty of theories now the
06:53ecologists of the poor for instance that are people who do not fight for the environment because
06:59they are ecologists but because they live with and within this environment so i think of course if
07:05we know need nature if we live with it and we know how to take care of it and we are uh and we have
07:11or developed some kind of sustainable living with it of course we are more willing to uh defend it or
07:18to have more conscience need on how know how to take care of it but here i would say there are many
07:25ways in how to address environmentalists you might find also big ngos that want for instance to uh do
07:33big conservation areas uh without people without the communities that are there right that the
07:40environmentalists of the rich let's say that you can might find in the literature so there are many
07:44approaches to look at the environmental crisis you might have also um today all these um even scientists
07:52that are saying you know how we can go to an energy transition but if we look at what are the material
08:00uh um investment of that energy transition you might find that you are reproducing also the same logic of
08:08extractivism so um if latin america is or not uh the the place that will save us i i cannot give like
08:18i i wouldn't say i'm not expecting that you have a crystal ball but you know from the gut feeling
08:24because there's your special kind of situation that you live there as well as in europe so you can
08:29make a life comparison of of the vibe of the people and i'm not very hopeful in europe people are so
08:36i mean maybe i'm wrong i hope they i'm wrong but i i i think people are so consumeristically minded that
08:42they just they are not many of them or most of them are able to change no yeah if you see the global
08:49consumption of course european societies uh consume more and they have a much more uh ecological footprint
08:56and uh ecological for instance water footprint they have the more as uh professor now in the
09:04university of vienna yurling blanc said no the imperial mode of living how those livelihoods are
09:10oh exactly which societies of course are not disconnected from the extractivism and all the
09:17material um and energy supplies that they have they need to take from other uh elsewhere for instance
09:24latin america but not only latin america the global south uh in general but what i see in latin america
09:31is certainly that grassroots movements um but also elsewhere in the global south you might find also very
09:38ecologists uh in in europe that they are giving uh answers to this crisis no and as you know and we
09:49we talked before about it i work for this global platform the environmental justice atlas that we map
09:55environmental conflicts or what worldwide and then we see and research based on the ej atlas also have
10:03uh proof that many of those local communities are not only fighting those big infrastructures and
10:11ecological destructive projects such as the big dam or big mining project but in the path in this conflict
10:20they also go to social and sustainable transformations so it's also a way of looking at environmental conflicts
10:27as a transformative process and if you look at the database ej atlas at org for instance you will
10:34see that in those process alternatives also emerge and i think in latin america we have um this um
10:42idea of for instance the buen vivir summa causa which are different world views on how we relate with nature
10:49so um so um i think it's uh important to look at there and wow what experiences are emerging from the ground
10:57to show that uh there are other ways of um development and um and here i also wanted to say that using latin
11:08america as an example um is struggling also to the idea of development itself as you might have known no
11:17development in practice for us in latin america were highly sustained by the u.s project and policy
11:24interventions that uh post the governments to say okay if you want to reach development so you might
11:31need to destroy the forest and then to start with a development project that i will tell you how
11:37it is it how it would be sustained how it's going to be financed so now what we see in latin america
11:44it's the failure of that development uh way of living so um i also i also think we have lots of
11:52experiences no in in how to rethink development economic growth what really economic growth means
11:59and for whom and what other indicators such as um ecological livelihoods even the happy index or many
12:08other indexes that are giving us answers to know that not only economic growth is the way to go
12:15because that economic growth is creating and has created and we see it now it's creating destruction
12:20and even poverty inequality uh the following follow-up question that i have is that as i was alluding to
12:28it you you are in the special place that you are living in europe as well as in south america so when you
12:34complain the campaign compare the psychology of europeans that you are meeting compared with the south
12:40americans you know where are the differences what we have in common what stacks in your mind and then
12:47kind of screams into your face that europeans misbehave i guess maybe not i don't know tell tell us
12:53well i think i have not not enough like uh uh data to to give like a an answer to that you know i move
13:07in between universities in between uh movements i think maybe i am talking i mean when i talk in europe
13:15i also talk with a social bubble no environment obviously but it's everything we have is only purple so
13:21we have to acknowledge but you can extract some knowledge even out of that bubble i hope now if
13:26not then let's let's drop it but i i don't want to push you into an answer i'm just curious what your
13:33gut is telling you are we different to south americans or not really are people kind of you know more
13:41conscious in south america about the environment because i was surprised that you are better than we are
13:46you know you are pura so purely mathematically speaking we have all the resources to do something
13:51about it and we just don't so there is something special about you at least in my eyes so that's why
13:58i'm kind of digging into that you know yeah what i depend on the country i think in latin america we
14:03really have great experiences on how to uh go uh to a sustainability i mean sustainable ways of living
14:11now for instance you take the case of costa rica costa rica was the the only country that when
14:18uh deforestation and forest loss was happening in latin america costa rica was the only country that
14:23really could um forest instead of deforest the country so i think that was very nice and even um
14:32increasing the gdp it was also increasing the by the forest so i think there are great experience in the
14:39policy intervention that could be uh really um reproduced in other parts of the world and also
14:47you have the case of uruguay that we also have talked about it no i mean you might have different
14:52policy interventions that have been fruitful uh but of course you also have other cases such as how
14:59the left some left governments also have failed environmentalism if you see the case for instance of
15:07ecuador i lived there when i was doing my master's degree and there was a lot of consciousness of
15:13the mothers i mean the rights of mother earth uh so a lot of environmentalism um and i mean it was a
15:21very fruitful um were in those years no was very uh fruitful for me to student there but then you look
15:28at even the left governments were also pushing for extractivism and more mining projects and more oil
15:37extractive projects for instance why did they behave this way why they made this decision that were
15:42totally contra leftist thinking rather pushed by someone or if you see it left in terms of theoretically
15:51speaking uh no left or right has really give uh big answers to the environmental crisis you see
16:02i mean when you see for instance the paradigm of uh leftist government the ecological constraints are
16:11not that visible so i was said that we were asking what the yeah that's i would interject i don't think
16:19that they are leftists because for for me as a leftist this is like this is alpha and omega you know when
16:25when we destroy the environment we will kill ourselves so like if you're not crazy yeah you
16:31have to acknowledge that other like theories as that eco-socialism you might find some answers
16:37but um the left itself i mean um what i think there's a big i mean questions here in latin america
16:44know and how uh leftist governments have also maybe it's a subcategory of the left you know it's not the
16:51left as such but maybe some subcategory i might not even call them lefties when when they are not
16:57conscious about the environment and and and suffering of of animals and all the other species because
17:04it's just you know if if you have at least a little bit of empathy you will not do it to the animals
17:12i totally agree with you but what we have seen in in the region is that even the theoretical words have
17:20uh changed for instance in the past it was extractivism which is of course like the taking
17:25of nature and energy um to extract and to uh export to europe or the us and then there was the word of
17:33neo-extractivism in how in terms of ecological extraction is the same but how the redistribution
17:41of those benefits are different so uh and and if you see the case for instance of brasil ecuador even
17:48bolivia you see that poverty alleviation and the reduction in poverty has been because of extractivism
17:55so they are like different two ways in how to use the benefits but in terms of ecological um
18:01projects and ecological destruction has been mostly the same is the role of the of the the role of the
18:07state and how distribution has been made that it has been different but this is where i see that
18:15environmentalism we're waiting for much more profound changes and sustainability transitions
18:23that's why the topic of guatemala is interesting and tell me otherwise but the data i know is that they
18:29are doing well and they are not destroying the environment that the uh well-being of guatemalians is
18:37actually above the average in in south america so you know like correct me if i'm wrong but that's the
18:43data i've seen that's that's one of the reasons i want to talk with the uh people from guatemala what
18:51exactly did they do differently why uruguay sorry sorry i made a mistake uh uruguay i mean so many countries
18:59in my head uh and uh the the the the thing is and that's also a question what you see are is there
19:06feelingness from us europeans to acknowledge that you are doing better job than we are in south america
19:14and you know that we are not always the wisest and best and and whatnot because europeans are very
19:20some of them not all of them but very you know high-minded and we are the rulers of this planet and
19:27what not for centuries and well as as competency goes maybe we should be more humble yeah no definitely
19:36as i said the case of uh in my mind the case of costa rica for instance during the 19th or the case
19:42of uruguay today in terms of the ecological footprint are outstanding and i think we should learn more
19:50about it in terms of policy interventions but i also know that not all policy interventions in one
19:56country might be useful for the others so which could be another question i wanted to ask whether
20:02you know the knowledge from one country is transferable to another yeah i mean i think many the yeah
20:09policy and public administrations have told us that it depends on for the context the historical context
20:14the political context cultural context too so uh what can be learned from there that could be uh exposed or
20:23use in another country i think that's uh the most the big question the one million question now how
20:28how do we do it no and what are folks saying so i mean i hope that there is already some discussion
20:35about the transfer of the knowledge from south america to european union i don't know question for you
20:41is there if there is happening if that's happening no i don't know i mean is it because when i when i
20:49when i spoke with austrians for example then and then i'm swimming in the leftist circles here in austria
20:56so people should be aware but so far no one was really aware that south america is actually leading
21:03the way in the transformation that they are doing better job than we are in europe we kind of live in our
21:09bubble that we are the best and brightest and we are not able to acknowledge i'm over generalizing now but
21:15uh well i i i don't see you know it should be in the forefront of the of the discussion that south
21:21america is doing a good job and you know what i say to people always why to reinvent the wheel when
21:28someone did already do the job so just take it and you know spare yourself the energy and the time and
21:33and resources and just you know use it when the knowledge is already there so are we are we open to
21:40that knowledge transfer what is your experience yeah i haven't worked directly with uh political
21:48uh it doesn't have to be politics it's just the awareness the willingness to to acknowledge that
21:54you are better i think better or not i think it's quite be the binary like way of thinking but
22:01what i have seen also is that uh europeans have learned a lot a lot about latin americans when you see
22:09for instance the dialogue among the degrowth movements and the social movements in latin america
22:15there has been a lot of uh discussions on what does the growth mean and what should i mean what
22:21could it mean in latin america because for instance in latin america the road has not been a such as
22:28attractive concept to talk about also because what i have said the idea of development and economic growth
22:35no one will tell you that you really want to degrowth let's say when you have uh poverty and and you
22:41have societies that don't have the minimal um resources let's say so um but the growth of course doesn't mean
22:49that you know but how the world has intervened maybe they have chosen unlucky unlucky description of what
22:56they want to achieve you know the the marketing is important it's like immediately it's like ah the
23:03the knee jerk reaction is now i don't want this yeah exactly and there is a very precisely on that and
23:08how the road was better i mean what's not the best uh concept to look at but in terms of philosophically
23:15speaking i think it's a powerful way of thinking in how we should behave with the i mean how we should
23:21behave and relate with the environment but if you look at for instance the suma causa suma camaya
23:28many other world views that come from indigenous communities from the indian countries and even uh
23:34the mapuche people in chile you see that in in practice is the same or they have a lot of dialogue
23:42on that so i think besides to see who's better who's not what can we learn uh from each one of the
23:49societies that are pushing for go away to this uh addiction to economic growth that i think that's
23:57the big problem no and how we see and how all governments even left or right i push into economic
24:04growth without really thinking what what are the ecological and social dimensions of that and the
24:11destruction on that because i think history has shown us that um yeah i mean that growth cannot be
24:20at expenses of the ecological destructions and from latin america we can also learn yes how we can
24:27have uh sustainable livelihoods uh go away of poverty without really disrupting um the environment and i see
24:36the ej atlas is very powerful on that because you see empirical a very uh specific experiences in how
24:43people protest to a mining project but at the same time they are um pushing for a sustainable uh
24:52tourism project for instance so it's that way i say we are saying no to this buying mining project but
24:59we do want development with this uh political project we have in our communities and then you might have
25:06agroecology uh tourism tourism ecological tourism many other activities even with the energy transition
25:14you have like um energy sovereignty sovereignty what kind of projects are who owns those projects
25:23who um take it or the participation of the communities in those development models that are more bottom
25:31up than top down now that's that's the beauty of this new approach and of these new possibilities that
25:37these technologies open up is that you can produce your own energy you don't have to rely on you know russia
25:44oh and that's that's that's that's that's the interesting psychological aspect of that that
25:52in my mind it screams yeah let's do it as quickly as possible because it's created we will be independent
25:59and uh economically and and and uh energy wise independent or more independent maybe not totally but more
26:08independent but i don't see much enthusiasm in european union it it is there
26:14i'm not saying it's not there at all but uh well we are taking baby steps not really a sprint you
26:20know it's not like we are maybe 20 30 years of it it wasn't stagnation but it wasn't exactly ambitious
26:31changes ahead of us no so what is your take uh where did uh europe dropped the ball and why well of course
26:40the context has changed if you see for instance uh european political leaders today climate change is
26:47not not the central point today war and imperialism and economic uh commerce no i mean trade in terms of
26:56picking i think the you can see it also in latin america how the environmental issue has put away
27:05like two other uh big issues and problems we have in our um society such as if for instance the agenda
27:15today is migration uh security um yeah i mean so i think yeah but isn't it a mistake you know the
27:25migration is big time caused by the environment so if we aren't fixing migration but we are neglecting
27:32environment that we are shooting ourselves in the foot in the long run in my opinion
27:38totally and that's a complex thinking which i highly understand but i think that uh today the
27:47unfortunately the topic is of course how uh or how we are moving towards a more bipolar world in when you
27:57you have us you have china and much more competitive and i want to see what i am
28:04seeing also in europe in this idea of the european project based mostly on cooperation um
28:13no borders you see how this idea uh philosophical the way of thinking after the cold war it's changing
28:21today today today you see military interventions you see uh a powerful economy uh as us going away from
28:31the international organizations also what we have uh witnessed in palestinia what we are witnessing
28:38no in palestinia in ukraine even in venezuela and you see that in the end the international organizations
28:45can do can do nothing on that i mean instead of saying oh something much more um figurative or not
28:54really pushing towards a big change so you see also like a crisis of the international system today so
29:02within this context of course environmental issues are not the priorities and i think of course is wrong
29:11because so much of this political crisis social crisis even the immigration uh crisis as you
29:18mentioned it's because of uh ecological destruction but the question is who's kind of changing the
29:26perception yeah and just to finish of course environmentalism or ecological as a topic is not really a
29:32topic it's transversal to other topics but i think there is also a huge work for academic and
29:40activists to think and if you are talking about economy how is the environment taken into account
29:47if you are talking about war also how the environment is taken into account much more like a transversal
29:53topic than a single topic in the agenda or in a big political agenda so this is my reading on on what
30:01is happening not only in in europe but also in latin america for instance you we have elections this
30:08sunday in costa rica and uh i i have seen some of the debates of the political debates with the
30:15different candidates and the environment is has not even talk i mean it's like 0.02
30:26someone has talked about environmentalism while in costa rica in the past that was a big agenda
30:33today the topic in the country is security um economic growth uh and you might have seen this
30:41in many countries all around the world how the interest of society have been changed toward other
30:48topics and of course politicals and candidates will respond to that because they want power and
30:54they want votes and of course they want to uh yeah but that's what i was asking do is changing this this
31:00this priority list you know so it didn't drop from the heavens so someone is in the in the background
31:06it's kind of no pulling the strings to to change it because you we can't kind of live without the
31:13environment so it should be on the forefront all the time you know every war is in the end
31:19fought on the mother earth using resources of the mother earth so no we are denying reality on
31:26it's when we are not talking about it so what is your take why is it happening because it's totally
31:32irrational in my opinion yeah i think there is a feeling of powerless when you see also these chaotic
31:40and apocalyptic readings of what is happening with climate change ecological destruction and so on so
31:46forth you might feel that you cannot do nothing to that you know that you can do anything so just live and
31:53survive as soon as you can and it might be uh a feeling of powerless with i know many young people
32:01have it and i think this is a shame because of course this power less sensitive could be transformed
32:07into action and into a political pressures so i think there is a a huge um yeah a huge work to do
32:17uh on that and the other answer is what i i said already know how uh the the the topic has been moved
32:26uh yeah like besides other other topics like much more important or or also but also um i think for many years
32:38the the environmental problems and of course i agree with this because there is a climate justice thing that not
32:45many countries that have uh contaminated have polluted the world as the one that are receiving the
32:52consequences but what you see uh how also the global north has been affected by uh floods uh water scarcity
33:03um you might see that is not only that the global south will uh survive and leave the consequence of
33:10ecological destructions now we have it both in global north and south so i think um there's also one
33:17answer and the other is uh that this feeling of powerless is also broth because what country would be
33:26the one who gives the answer to that this when you see the crisis of multilateral multilateralism that we
33:34are seeing of course it would be impossible to put all the countries together to have uh commitment to
33:41to the ecological crisis and you have seen in the cops in the past cop in brazil but also in many other
33:47cops that the agreements but in the end is not compulsory compulsory to for them to respect them so you arrive
33:57one year again one year after and saying oh i haven't had the opportunity to uh i don't know decrease my
34:06ecological footprint or my co2 emissions so i think it's also a problem that there is no like a commitment
34:16uh global commitment besides the discourse so this is also a way to go how we can turn uh the commitments
34:25that that countries are making every year to a real commitments what i'm hearing from you and also
34:33what i'm seeing is this i i will call it short termism this this this thinking on here and now more is
34:41prioritized uh compared with the thinking about the future and this is maybe a question and something
34:47that i have seen that human beings that we are not very good at strategizing most of us i guess and this
34:54is probably the manifestation of the the the wildest manifestation of of this phenomena that in the
35:02end if we are neglecting this problem it will grow bigger and bigger and bigger and more and more
35:08expensive so we actually shooting ourselves with the in the foot in the in the in that way that when you
35:14are not addressing it today and we will postpone it to the future it will be just more complicated to do
35:20something about it and we if we are not stupid we should know that you know we can't hide from it like
35:26this is the only planet we have so you know where should we go so how do you see
35:33what you think and when you are talking with people about this how to tackle this i don't know how to put it
35:41this this this this human willingness to neglect reality or deny reality or how to say that that we
35:50actually making it worse just by pretending that somehow it will fix itself by itself it's very it's
35:58like fairy tale thinking clearly like five years old children you know yeah it's not very adult
36:04yeah yeah totally well i think the only way is to transform our economies model economic models
36:12energy system and relationship with nature as as i said now if we don't have that relationship we don't
36:18know nature uh we're i mean like live with it love nature is impossible to take care of it and i think
36:27there is also a crisis of um i mean it's not my case but i know that many uh children think that
36:35the food comes from the supermarket what we do with that no for instance if i live in the city i even take
36:41my son to say you know how we milk the cow to reproduce that kind of life and childhood that i had
36:47because i want him to know that the apples come from a tree and that tree needs water and that need
36:52nutrients no but i know many children today thinks that the food comes from the supermarket and i think
36:59this is a epistemological crisis because they don't know they are rooted into an ecological system so i
37:07think we should start from them because recycling at the schools is not enough no how we change that
37:14epistemological crisis and in which we are that comes of course from many years back when nature was
37:20separated from the human i mean the humans maybe it goes hand in hand with urbanization no that the
37:27more people live in cities the less they are as you were exposed to the village life and and and you
37:33never seen a apple tree explanation but even in the city you might have like uh cities i mean uh urban uh
37:44agroecology farms in the city there are many ways to to go no but but i totally agree with you that if
37:51you live in a big building no how or how will you see it but i think there is big educational tools that
37:58we might think to to for the new and young people uh that at the same time no they are informed of a
38:06computer 24 hours so i think there is also how we go away uh of that to the real world to the material
38:14world to touch the the the land to see to plant to harvest i think those experiences are very important
38:23for us to reconnect with nature because i think that's the much more uh the big crisis is what we are
38:29and we feel disconnected from nature and i think indigenous communities and peasant communities uh
38:35show us that we should be reconnect so i think even if it's quite optimistic idealistic philosophical
38:42thinking i think that's the much bigger crisis in that uh regards and um also what it gives me hope
38:51of course is not these abstract promises that we see at the global level but also the real experiences
38:57we see communities defending their territories the indigenous knowledge systems that so far they are
39:05at least in the last uh five years they are being used by the ipbs and many uh un um institutional known
39:16how to bring the indigenous knowledge uh into the policy making i think we have also to but how we can
39:23learn also from these um grassroots movements um yeah and there is a lot of collective practices
39:32on care reciprocity sufficiency the thing we should look at them because if you wait for the governments
39:39to make a change you will end up by waiting so i think uh from the bottom up is the the best way to look
39:48at and these are not marginal stories no they show the different ways of organizing life are possible
39:53both in the global north and south um of course it would be better if you have the policy interventions
40:00and you have like a global committee and throw us that but i think the material experience at the local
40:06local level show us that uh change is possible in different ways this leads to a question about as you
40:14uh alluding to it education is the education in south america significantly different to the education
40:21in european union from what you have gathered and information that are the children in the schools
40:27more exposed in south america too well you know that supermarket don't don't bring you the apples and
40:37and and and milk and whatnot that it's you know like crazy yeah i think i think it depends i have seen many
40:44disconnected people in both europe and and latin america so it depends it depends also about the values of the
40:52families and the values of a society you know it depends a lot on that uh yeah but of course uh i mean if you live in costa rica
41:03you have less urbanized and less big cities now go to the field it's quite easy i mean in one hour you
41:11can be already in a rural space so different than i don't know new york the problem is that 50 percent
41:19or more than 50 percent of the world population are living in cities so without education many of
41:25those children will never learn that apple trees are really a thing and like the apples are not
41:34wrapped in plastic immediately after you know they just suddenly emerge somewhere so with the
41:40pandemic you saw many people move to the rural sector and start to reconnect again i think
41:47that was and many people who move to the rural sector or away from cities remain there and now they
41:53they look maybe they were different so there was like a um yeah a move to a different no migration from
42:01the cities to the to the rural sector another topic i wanted to discuss and this is a sad one but it
42:07needs to be discussed is the future and you as a environmentalist who can exchanges with other
42:14environmentalists so what is on the horizon if we don't change the approach you know what the
42:20the middle of the century or the second half of the century will look like if if we as you said
42:27yourself now the deprioritize environment and and war and economic growth and i don't know craziness
42:35will be the primarily topic of of the politics and and not how to save our asses from what's on the horizon
42:43because they just we talked about it now it's it it's already terrible and this is just the beginning
42:51so what are the folks saying so what might be the worst and the the middle scenarios uh what will be
42:58happening for exactly for those children who believe that apples are coming from the supermarket
43:03yeah when when you see the scenarios um you you yeah different i mean in climate change policies you
43:13define the different scenarios regarding all the co2 emission not the killing curve and when you see
43:19the worst scenario is really worse i mean so i cannot predict of course the future but uh regarding
43:25ecological pressures uh climate instability biodiversity loss water scarcity both in the in the global north and
43:33south will be much more disruptive and uh what is also important to have here into account is that
43:41uh these impacts will be highly uneven um across regions and social groups of course it's not the same
43:48uh living or be a rich person that not being a rich person know how you can't adapt to the ecological
43:57crisis is different in different ways if you don't have water in the tap water in your house
44:02you might be i mean you might be uh able to buy but some people would not be able to buy water so i think
44:13that it would of course increase inequality and different societies will be adapt let's say differently
44:22um and here sorry to jump in so you know exact data what are people saying about what is gonna happen if we
44:29don't wake up and don't fix our problems and just pray that it somehow fixes itself by itself so what
44:37because you know this is too ephemeral what you're saying are there any real scenarios what is going to
44:44happen in this particular part of the world uh did you hear something about that and i'm focusing on
44:52europe now primarily because we are living here and you see all the the the they have put some kind
44:57of uh end date which is 2030 which is only yeah four years so many uh global agreements have used that
45:08date exactly why i don't know but uh i think it's a low motion process it's not that from one year to
45:16another i think many of what i am describing we are seeing it now so besides having a specific
45:23temporality i would said it's much more as a slow motion process that we are looking at that of course
45:29it will increase it would be worse but uh we are living it now for instance the if you see for instance
45:36the i don't know plastic pollution that has happened in a very short term when plastic you mean the islands
45:45in the oceans and island but also the microplastic we have in our bodies that has been a process and
45:51a systemic you know a systemic pollution towards uh so if you have asked me for that 10 years ago i would
45:59have said i don't know 2026 but it is a small a slow process so i think those temporalities are important
46:08to look at in terms of how this destruction is already happening um in that regard and i think uh
46:18how uh will the futures look like until today we are facing uh i don't know like the fourth
46:25revolution or the artificial intelligence i think how today we are facing this big challenge
46:30has also ecological and social constraints um aa for instance uh yeah it's like immaterially printed as
46:42clean no artificial intelligence you have in your computer and so but if you look at what's the
46:47ecological footprint behind it it's enormous no massive energy consumption water use for data centers
46:55destruction of minerals minerals for hardware and uh increasing electronic waste so i think that's
47:02going to be big challenge in the next years ecologically speaking but also socially know uh how um
47:10i mean the the labor issue also know how many robots will be changed by human people doing the same job so
47:17i think there's also a big crisis that it's uh in the future if we don't manage it well and if we don't
47:24do it democratically and uh with equity without equity in mind how it's gonna be and how it will
47:32reforce of course extractivism um not only for natural resources but that attention human labor um and of
47:40course as the history has shown no particularly affecting the much more marginalized uh community
47:48so i see this is a big challenge for the next years now i'm optimistic pessimistic everything looks
47:57gloom but but on the other hand that's the optimism in me that it's it's a huge possibility for the left
48:04if we do our job right because everything the the wind is blowing into our into our direction so we have
48:13to change so many things and so many things uh are actually what we wanted to achieve anyway so shorter
48:19work day no that's the robotization artificial intelligence might lead to or the ecological crisis
48:26might actually lead to less consumption because the nature is pushing us in that direction so we just need
48:32to how to put it we we need to wake up to the challenge no and not uh not to be too i don't know
48:41arguing with between ourselves that's our specialty in left circles who's bigger lefties and who have
48:47read more of max so anyway so thank you very much at the mid message i think is reconnect with nature
48:54reconnect with nature material terms no true artificial intelligence really reconnect now that's it's one
49:02of the things that people are saying that we will return more to the here and now exactly because the
49:08virtual will just not be enough and we had a discussion with a fella from uh uh unions in theater and and this is
49:18this is the movement that what he was saying that actually the uh the audience is growing bigger and
49:23bigger because you know after all the time that you are exposed to social media you want some real human
49:30interactions and he real human you know fun so you go to the theater more than 10 years ago or 15 years ago
49:38so you know i mean hopefully this will be the trends and people will wake up we will see anyways thank you very
49:45much kretel you you gave me one hour so uh uh i i i want to stop here and we can continue maybe next time in
49:52couple of months with another interview i mean this this was interesting and follow up what's going on in
49:58south america maybe with the uh changes that will happen in south america politically wise in next
50:06month or year so we will see i mean i i'm praying that it will it goes well in your country costa rica
50:12yeah and break a leg and stay healthy thank you very much for having me
Comments