Today more than ever, the words of Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 apply when he presciently said: “An important biological species is threatened with extinction” rapid and progressive liquidation of their natural living conditions : the human being. Now we are aware of this problem, although it is almost too late to prevent it.
This year, the call for the event is addressed to the international campaign against pollution, a problem that is tearing humanity apart, and plastic pollution in particular.
Around 11 million tons of plastic waste enter the oceans every year, affecting more than 800 marine and coastal species.
Solid waste is growing everywhere, flooding the streets and neighborhoods of every city. Liquid wastes are also dumped into seas, rivers and hydrographic basins. This problem needs to be reversed. It is also important to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. Think about the world we will offer future generations.
At the Rio summit, Fidel demanded: “If you want to save humanity from this self-destruction, you have to distribute the wealth and available technologies on the planet better.” Less luxury and less waste in some countries, so that in large parts of the world less poverty and less hunger. No more transmission of environmentally destructive lifestyles and consumer habits to the Third World. Make human life more rational. Ensure a fair international economic order. Use all the necessary scientific knowledge for sustainable development without pollution. Pay off the ecological debt and not the foreign debt. Hunger is disappearing and not man.”
More than ever, action is being forced on governments and all environmentally conscious citizens to take measures that transform the current situation, which is overwhelming, in addition to the demand for a circular economy, which implies the reuse and recovery of all waste, to practice and manufacture new productions again , which would protect biodiversity and human health while saving large sums of money on new investments; and above all, together we would save this blue planet that is the great house of humanity.
In Cuba, the date is also the honoring of Dr. Dedicated to Rosa Elena Simeón, a prominent researcher, eternal director of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment, who dedicated her life to the scientific development of the island and the promotion of a cultural environment.
We don’t just talk about the present, we talk above all about the future, about offering tomorrow’s generations a cleaner world, where the blue of the sky and the sea, the singing of the birds and the green of the trees are a path exist and be full.
So, on this day, we return once more to Fidel’s legacy: “What prevents us from immediately using these resources to further Third World development and combat the impending ecological destruction of the planet?” No more selfishness, no more hegemonism, No more callousness, irresponsibility and fraud. Tomorrow it will be too late to do what we should have done long ago.
Then this World Environment Day may be an SOS for the future so that tomorrow is not too late.