“The burn is the consequence of the uncontrolled grip of corporations on our lives”

VSwas at the end of the summer of 2002, twenty years ago. Taking up the metaphor suggested by [le physicien et géopolitologue] Jean-Paul Deléage, President Chirac made an impression during the 4^e Earth Summit in Johannesburg (South Africa), declaring from the podium: “ Our house is burning and we look away. »

A few months earlier, the atmospheric chemist Paul Crutzen (1933-2021) had published a seminal article in Nature“ Geology of mankind where he called the new geological era caused by human activity the Anthropocene. It has already been known for several decades that the growth of greenhouse gas emissions would have the effect of changing the climate. But, for many, the matter remained abstract.

Methane removed from public debate

If we count from the beginning of the industrial era, the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide has increased by half. At the same time, that of methane, a gas strangely removed from public debate, has more than doubled. From 2003, France experienced a heat wave causing approximately 15,000 deaths in twenty-four days. Since then, year after year, the metaphorical “burn” has gradually become a test.

Read also: Article reserved for our subscribers “The challenges of the Anthropocene beyond questions of financing must form the backdrop for our reflection”

In this summer of 2022, our house is really burning: fire devours the forestsriverbeds are drying up, glaciers and permafrost are melting, once-rare climatic events are shaking the planet as the heat wave upsets the complex balances patiently forged within ocean ecosystems.

The question of the habitability of the Earth is no longer a figure of speech but the main vital issue. Especially since the ordeal, rehashing the scientists, will not stop gaining in intensity during the decades to come, at least because of the persistence of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and the non-linear phenomena of runaway to the climate.

The question of the habitability of the Earth is no longer a figure of speech but the main vital issue. Especially since the ordeal, rehashing the scientists, will not stop gaining in intensity during the decades to come, at least because of the persistence of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and the non-linear phenomena of runaway specific to the climate.

Any investigation goes through the correct designation of the problematic situation

If, this time, we are more numerous to watch, dazed, the house being consumed, considering that there is no more real elsewhere, the hypnotic state that the spectacle of these innumerable scenes of desolation provokes paralyzes the stock.

You have 61.37% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.