In large and small electoral campaigns in most of the world, such as the presidential elections in the United States and the municipal elections in Brazil, global warming and the loss of biodiversity appear in an irrelevant position or are completely absent from the debates. But, even if it is not addressed, the collapse of the functioning of the planet is possibly what has the most impact on politics and is directly connected to the rise of the far right in both the global north and south. The question is: what do parties and politicians have to offer when temperatures are changing rapidly, droughts and floods are multiplying, extreme events are becoming more frequent and severe and scientists warn that we are in uncharted territory?
The extreme right, which has engulfed the traditional liberal right, has a clear answer: a return to a past that never existed. In other words: a past of glories and without conflicts, where what concerns each gender and race is established, with undisputed male and white supremacy, where there are only families of men with women and LGBTIQ+ people remain in the closet or in treatment. doctor. This supposed social and cultural immutability would correspond to the immutability of the trajectory of life: being born, growing up, studying, forming a traditional family, getting a stable job, setting up your own business or inheriting the family business and dying knowing that everything will repeat itself. in future generations.
What the extreme right promises is obviously a lie, since that past was only possible for a minority and left out the majority, mired in poverty, misery or slavery. And the conflicts were intense and cost the lives of the most vulnerable. It is also a great deception because there is no immutability on a planet in mutation. But the extreme right has corrupted the truth and has decided to invent both the reality of the past and the reality of the present. It sells a frightened population the lie that all the prevailing insecurity is not the responsibility of the capitalist colonial mode that, among many other forms of violence, has turned nature into a commodity and has altered the planet’s climate, but rather of a supposed “degeneration ” morality produced by the left.
And the left ones? They are at a crossroads, and some don’t even understand it. There are the old leftists, which in Brazil have Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva as their exponent, who continue to believe that the only thing people want is to have a car in the garage, a barbecue with beer on the weekend and their own house with many appliances. And what’s worse: he believes it when oil and the meat industry are among the main villains of global warming. And then there are the new lefts, who have reached the 21st century and realize the seriousness of the moment. But what can they offer?
The most honest politician or politician must tell their voters that voting is not enough. In addition to voting much better, to remove active or passive deniers from positions of power, one must participate much more actively in decisions. Parliamentarians and rulers must be pressured daily to adopt emergency mitigation and adaptation measures, but also to stop the large corporations that are eating the planet. I would have to say that you have to take much more responsibility for the decisions that are made in the present, because not only your life depends on them, but also that of your children and grandchildren, not in a century, but next year. The most honest politician would have to say that life is already worse and that it will get much worse. And I would have to say that you have to learn to lose. Changing eating habits and the way we get around and between cities is just the beginning. It is not enough to recycle the remains of consumption, we must consume enormously less.
Between the lie that gives the comfort of hope, even if it is false, and the truth that demands sacrifices and losses, who votes for a politician who tells the truth? The answer is: it has to be us. We have to vote for those who tell the hard truth, but are willing to fight. That is the beginning of a change that has to be very rapid, because the landscape of the planet is being rapidly transfigured. Policies and politicians who say what is hardest to hear and even harder to do is where our chance for a tomorrow lies.
