We are facing a very hot summer, with extreme heat waves and with serious consequences for our own health, with unpredictable storms, a so-called hot snap, strong air, and suffocating days, which has repercussions on people’s health. Last year, 11,000 people died from heat waves. The climate crisis is becoming more and more evident every day and the passivity of public representatives to take effective measures is common practice, with the exception of a few who take seriously what is coming our way.
And meanwhile, as in Mallorca, the new public officials taking office after the municipal and regional elections charge important departments such as the Environment and Equality, when they should be the most important.
Faced with this new negationist current that accompanies the new politicians, citizens should demand with more impetus the programmes that support environmental policies and above all that in cities, where the heat is made more ardent by the asphalt that doubles the temperature in the absence of trees, should increase not only the climate shelters but above all increase the vegetation in the streets, avenues, vertical gardens and even on the rooftops there are green areas to mitigate the rise in temperature. All this is accompanied by other measures, such as free transport, limiting the use of massive vehicles in cities and being aware of what we are going to face from now on, with adverse meteorological effects, droughts, an increase in pests, the disappearance of pollinating insects essential for human food.
We could talk about many more things, but this time I want to focus on the friend of life, the tree, which gives us oxygen to live, life to life and is our ally as a natural climatic refuge, with its shade that gives us coolness when the sun scorches those hours of high radiation in which we must protect ourselves.
When you walk through the city and through the villages, you can see that under the trees, the shade of the branches covers our rest or that greeting to our neighbour, we are pleasantly sheltered next to our great friend, who is also the host of the birds that rest under his protection.
With this, I want to show the great value that trees have in our streets, that they should be cared for and pampered, that many more should be planted in all the avenues as a climatic refuge, that they are CO2 collectors and that they also clean the pollution generated by man. It is a great neighbour, a friend of incalculable value, the guardian of cities, the protector of our skin, the umbrella that avoids overheating our skin and the oxygen of life.
We must consider another way than fighting against nature itself, as this is undoubtedly an absurd suicide, a senseless act that will have repercussions for future generations and whose effects we are already suffering.
Politicians must abandon their posturing in the face of society, as the current Minister for the Environment did recently when she attended a conference of environment and energy ministers on a bicycle on a short trip to the meeting venue. Only measures that are put into practice will prove to be effective in combating the climate crisis. Neither are agreements that remain wet ink and forgotten, such as the 2030 Agenda or the so-called Paris Agreement, which has been a huge lie, a global deception far from being fulfilled. The European Biodiversity Act on the restoration of nature has also recently been approved in the European Parliament, with the aim of negotiating a future regulation with the Council of the EU. As we can see, the slowness of the institutions is abusive and slows down the taking of immediate measures to face the climate crisis. Amidst posturing, denialism, passivity and unfulfilled agreements, we are heading towards adversity with serious economic, social and health consequences, of unforeseeable and catastrophic magnitude and consequences. Politicians should stop blaming the citizens for this crisis, hiding the fact that they are the only ones responsible since they are supposed to have the force of law. But of course, we also know that many of them dance to the tune of the multinationals.
Those elected by the citizens must start dealing with the crisis as such, face up to the emergency we are in, admit the failure to make decisions that are not being fulfilled, include all the figures so as to make a better assessment of the situation we are facing, tie up the loose ends and forget which party acronym they belong to.
There is a book that should be the bible of the climate crisis, showing us the harsh reality and possible immediate solutions. It is called “The Climate Book” and has been proposed by Greta Thunberg, who taught the world a lesson in her activist struggle against the passivity of politicians. In addition to her, numerous researchers and climate experts have written in it. It is also a book that reflects the reality on all fronts that we are facing, seeking solutions that must be immediate. A book that will undoubtedly be a reading companion on the long journeys that politicians make continuously by car and plane (but not by bicycle), to alter their consciousness, expose their shame and remove from their right hand those who insist on leading them astray, cutting the strings that pull their hands and hearts like puppets at the service of economic power, so that they can enjoy the shade of the tree of life and reason with peace of mind.