Brazilian Tragedy: Risk for the Common Home?

Brazilian Tragedy: Risk for the Common Home?

 

Religious, human rights and socio-biodiversity organizations are leading the initiative, which will feature representatives from churches, researchers, activists, students and specialists from different areas.

The process of deconstruction of democracy in Brazil experienced in recent years has led the country to multiple emergencies: in the religious area, with fundamentalism, in the economic area, with the rupture of the welfare state, in the area of ​​human rights, with the growing violence and the murder of groups made vulnerable by their ethnic, racial, social, territorial and gender characteristics, in the area of ​​socio-biodiversity, with the destruction of forests, biomes and native peoples, in the area of ​​health, with the health crisis caused by the countless administrative responsibility practices during the Covid-19 pandemic that contributed to a high rate of contamination and deaths.

The federal government’s denial policies to adequately face the pandemic turned it into an emergency emergency. Thus, the main objective of the Seminar is to analyze the current scenario of collapse in health systems and neglect of health policies referenced by science, in order to understand what risks the present situation may represent (or not) for the planet as a whole – our Common Home.

“Over these three days we will deepen the analysis of the Brazilian situation in the light of pandemics and measure the impacts of fundamentalism on democracy, economy, socio-biodiversity and the health crisis,” explained CONIC secretary general Romi Bencke, adding that The idea is also “to establish alliances and action strategies”.

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With Salles, the government signed 721 measures that impact the environment in one year

With Salles, the government signed 721 measures that impact the environment in one year

 

Of the many shocking phrases uttered at that memorable April 22 ministerial meeting of last year, one has earned a definite place in the pantheon of national shame. At a time when Brazil was struggling with the pandemic crisis, the Minister of the Environment, Ricardo Salles, saw an opportunity. “It is to pass the infra-legal reforms of deregulation, simplification… While we are in this moment of tranquility, because only talking about Covid and passing the cattle… To change the whole rules.”

A lot of water has rolled under that bridge in this one year. Characters from that meeting were driven out of the government, others ended up being denied by the facts or did not deliver what they promised. The scandal of the then-minister Sergio Moro’s accusations of interference by Jair Bolsonaro in the Federal Police, reason for the release of the entire meeting by the Federal Supreme Court, remained muffled. Only one prediction prospered. “Passing the cattle” has become a government trademark, a symbol of “everything that is there”. And one of the few threats carried out in Brasília. In the last 12 months, Salles, the real “superminister”, has in fact passed the herd. There were 721 measurements. Altogether, there are 76 institutional reforms, 36 privatization measures, 36 revisions of rules, 34 of flexibilization, 22 of deregulation and 20 repeals, according to the Politician Forever monitor. According to the monitor, the numbers refer to norms issued by different federal government agencies that are relevant to the Brazilian climate and environment policy.

The dismantling of inspections, budgets and regulations in the environmental area resulted, among others, in a 216% increase in deforestation, which reached the record mark of 810 square kilometers, the advance of mining on indigenous lands and a 12% increase at fire spots. A devastation encouraged by the military settled in positions of trust in the sector previously destined to technicians. A survey obtained exclusively for details the catastrophic effects of Salles interference. Prepared by the National Association of Environmental Career Servants (Ascema), the document entitled “Dossier: A Tragedy Announced” will be delivered in the coming days to the presidents of the other powers of the Republic and to representatives of the US embassy, ​​as a way of expose the government’s environmental crimes to Brazilian society and the world. “The Amazon is under orchestrated attack by illegal miners, squatters, loggers and ranchers, often coordinated or supported by local, state and national political figures and organizations”, highlights the document, whose first version was sent to Pope Francis at the end last year.

 

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Charter of Principles

OUR COMMON FUTURE
A STRATEGY FOR A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE
Heitor Matallo Junior

 

 

The future is a common public good that does not yet exist, but has a tremendous potential value. It cannot be measured and it cannot be evaluated in itself. It can only be measured and evaluated by its past, that is, by what we do now. Like water or air, the future may be better or worse according to how we treat it now. The future as well as the public is a mix of tangible and intangible inputs that are the result of the form on how we use natural capital. The “way” in which societies take ownership of the natural capital comprises social relations, structures and political relations between individuals and states and the cultural heritage in which we are immersed.

 

Human history has produced, until now, a wide range of knowledge, goods and technologies, which because they have been accumulated, we consider them as results of progress. But culture, with its accumulated tangible and intangible assets, also left its mark in this process. Humanity has developed countless activities that resulted in the modification of landscapes, through deforestation and the burning of natural forests, interference in the hydrological cycle and the extinction of plant and animal species, causing deep scars on the planet.

 

Since the 19th century, many thinkers have recognized the gravity of the situation and expressed their concern with what has since been called the “limits of the planet”. The first to announce an insurmountable crisis was Thomas Malthus. The arithmetic progression of food production versus geometric progression of population growth was the irreducible mathematical antagonism that would lead us to the collapse. In the 20th century, particularly in the last 50 years of that century, other great works were published announcing the physical limits of nature, the economic growth and the exhaustion of models of social organization, culminating in the publication of the Club of Rome report and the First World Conference on the Human Environment (Stockholm Conference), both in 1972.

 

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