I am writing this column with a drop of sweat running down my forehead. The sun is hot outside. The São Paulo thermometer’s hint of mercury reveals that this will be the hottest September on record. On the other side of the world, slanted eyes stare at the numbers in disbelief: the temperature in Japan breaks the record of 40°C. In Europe, children splash in the dirty water of fountains when temperatures rise.
Elephants from Zimbabwe’s largest national park are migrating to the neighboring country in search of water as they flee a historic drought. The other Sunday, about 15,000 pairs of sneakers stepped onto the hot asphalt of New York while pawing on the cracked soil of Africa, demonstrating for the end of fossil fuels.
This was the same demand as that of the activists who taped his body to a runway in Hamburg. It was that too those who carried out similar actions in Spain, England and Italy. The same request made by Vanessa Nakate and thousands in Uganda, by Greta and thousands in Sweden, by Ridhima Pandey (just 12 years old) and thousands in India.
If the planet screams, why do we Brazilians sweat in silence? Of course there are the odd demonstration, some activists do courageous work, but if you take into account the size of our population, you can say that the birds here don’t chirp as much as those there.
And why is that? The first thing I noticed was that Brazilians don’t take to the streets because of their forgiving nature. But then I remembered the last March for Marijuana, which, according to the organization, brought together more than a hundred thousand people on Avenida Paulista. Or the LGBT+ Pride Parade, which once again this year attracted thousands of people with colors, splendor and political demands.
A fellow activist, Daniel Holanda of Fridays for Future, said that with the election of Lula and therefore Marina, many Brazilians think they have already done their part and can relax if that were the case: the same president is considering oil production in the Estuary of the Amazon, when it is unacceptable to invest more in fossil fuels, when Brazil could focus much more on the profits from solar energy, as China has done.
Daniel also told me something sad: when it comes to climate, his generation (currently about 20 years old) lives in a state of denial or prefers to spend their years in the shade and water, aware of the terrible prospects that lie ahead . relatively fresh, enjoying youth and not fighting in the burning tar. And those who are willing to do that don’t really know what to do.
My feminist colleagues claim that they are not engaging in the climate fight because they have more urgent flags to carry: the fight against hunger, racism and genderbased violence. True, it’s very hard to think about the weather when your stomach is growling as black children dodge stray bullets. But unfortunately it is no longer possible to separate one from the other. The climate crisis is the stage on which all other dramas will take place from now on. Droughts will bring more hunger. Extreme natural events cause more damage. And as always, the rope will break on the side of the weakest. In other words, when we talk about climate, it’s about everything that affects us: the fight against hunger, antiracism, work, cities and even democracy.
And it’s also about transformation. This crisis opens the possibility of rethinking the mechanisms of our system in light of the changes that we will face sooner or later (the later, the worse).
Who will recreate this boiling world? It’s like? That’s what the screams missing from our streets should say.