“Ninguna época tuvo tanta mediocridad entre los líderes mundiales” (No era had such mediocrity among world leaders) – José Mujica, President of Uruguay 2010-2105
Imagine a situation where the risk of a future seismic planetary event – a real risk accepted by the majority – is being managed by a small group of people, the elders at the highest echelons of society.
Now, it is within the power of these elders to expedite the changes needed to reduce the risk of said seismic event. However, their preoccupation is on protecting their power and enhancing their financial net worth, even though it is contrary to the good of society.
Caught in a game of competing for power and money these elders view life through the lens of man-made paper rather than through the wonders of nature provided by a planet billions of years old.
Lacking the awareness and enlightenment that one might expect from the leaders of the day, they are incapable of seeing past their own existence. As a result, their decision making takes little consideration of the future generations who will have to suffer the consequences of this seismic event.
Sound familiar?
Well, the reality is that planet Earth, the life blood of our existence, is facing an epic ecological crisis. By some accounts we are on the verge of passing an irreversible tipping point with dramatic consequences for human life and every other species that we share the planet with.
Yet the elders of our time are neglecting their responsibility to society and future generations. A dramatic change in mind set is needed if we are to avert this crisis. Politicians, business leaders and the capital allocators of the world all have to more explicitly consider the long-term sustainability of our ecosystem in their decision making.
Generational divide
The younger generations, who will be most impacted by this crisis, are voicing their opinions more, calling for those in power to act. Only this morning I saw the news that school students in Ireland went on strike and marched for climate change to be taken seriously, part of a global movement inspired by Greta Thunberg, a young political activist in Sweden. Respect!
The RTE article noted that: “Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment Richard Bruton met protesters in Dublin and paid tribute to their “passion and engagement”. However, demonstrators said that they want action not words”. That is the key word, ACTION.
The challenge is that younger generations are not sufficiently represented where it truly matters. In government and across the board rooms of the world, on the committees and trustee boards where the world’s capital is allocated.
It is the older generations in power across politics and business who must take real action now. Most of these people will not exist when the worst of the climate crisis comes to pass but they are the ones leading us down this path. Is there any sense to that? Donald Trump, soon to be 73 years old, is the most obvious and extreme example.
To be clear, my issue is not with age. My issue is with those elders in our society still driven by amassing wealth and taking out of the system rather than giving back to society to empower the generations that will follow. (I’ll cover in more detail another time)
Political crisis
I don’t have much faith in the political leaders of the world to avert this crisis, particularly given the failure of the most powerful leaders to really lead on this issue. After all, the climate crisis is not something that has been brought on us out of the blue. It has been steadily building for decades. Yet every government has been too slow in putting forward a new model of economic development, one that is not harmful to our environment.
At the heart of ecological crisis is a political crisis, a crisis of leadership to bring about the planetary consensus needed to rapidly address our extractive relationship with the environment. This was the type of message Jose Mujica, the ex-President of Uruguay (2010-2015), known fondly as El Pepe, repeatedly delivered to world leaders in his speeches to the United Nations. But the leaders of the world have not listened.
The environment and human happiness
I first heard about José Mujica when I was living in Buenos Aires last year, talking politics as the crisis in Argentina began to escalate. His name came up and after asking who he was, I was told emphatically ‘you need to learn about El Pepe’.
Learning more about the Uruguayan leader has been one of the gifts of my Latin American adventure. Listening to his speeches and interviews is more like listening to a sage elder than a politician. He does not speak to win votes and favour, he speaks to empower people to think more.
Shaped by the challenges in his own life – including years of solitary confinement during a prison sentence imposed by the military dictatorship he fought against in the early part of his life – and armed with the wisdom of the stoic philosophers from a different era, El Pepe used his Presidency to try and motivate change by getting people to rethink our way of living.
In 2012, in his speech to representatives of the 139 countries attending the Summit on Sustainable Development in Brazil, El Pepe called on leaders to rethink our culture of consumerism and our model of civilisation that has made us a slave to globalisation.
“We must realise that the water crisis is not a cause, that the aggression towards the environment is not a cause. The cause is the model of civilisation we have created. And what we have to re-examine is our way of living…….”
Concluding his speech, El Pepe reminded the world:
“Happiness is the most important treasure that you all have. When you fight for the environment, the first element of the environment is called “human happiness”.”
Awakening
The speed at which we respond to the ecological crisis will depend on our true awakening to the scale of the crisis and our part in it.
Hence why we need more sage leaders like El Pepe to lead a revolution of the mind.
To human happiness!
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End
(Interestingly, some studies attribute the sudden collapse of the Mayan civilisation to their unwillingness to halt the rapid deforestation that caused severe droughts and forced people to abandon cities, even in the face of their sophisticated understanding of their environment.
Why Did the Mayan Civilization Collapse? A New Study Points to Deforestation and Climate Change
“The collapse is especially intriguing because it seemingly occurred at “a time in which developed a sophisticated understanding of their environment, built and sustained intensive production and water systems and withstood at least two long-term episodes of aridity,” says B.L. Turner, the lead author of the ASU study. In other words, the Maya were no fools. They knew their environment and how to survive within it—and still they continued deforesting at a rapid pace, until the local environment was unable to sustain their society.”)