The big challenge: climate literacy

Attempts have been made for decades to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to reduce the dangerous effects of this Climate Change we are causing.  The state of Climate Emergency arises due to the fact that we must act now to prevent the multiple points of no return from being activated and we can no longer avoid a very dangerous trend that could cause a hecatomb in the human population and in the most ecosystems.

Climate action must be carried out in a coordinated way by the entire world population and for this reason the United Nations conferences, the so-called COPs, have a lot of prominence. It is necessary that when someone represents our country in the various international forums, they act as climate activists. We don't do well when we don't know who is representing us or what they are defending. We are also not doing well when the consistency demanded of us by climate activists is not being applied to our lands with their responsibility.

Some places have a Climate Change law which unfortunately is not being applied at the expected pace. However, if the objectives of the law are analyzed we can come to the conclusion that the transformation we are planning to make would not be exemplary and would therefore be insufficient considering our responsibility.

What should be the ideal goal? To explain it in a few words and make it easy to remember. Halve emissions during this decade; halve emissions again in the 1930s, and halve again in the 1940s. The replacement of fossil fuels cannot be done due to a lack of financial resources, materials and available energy; that is why it is necessary to reduce the need for consumption. The necessary transformation is very big.

It is clear to us from the ecological social movements that this transition towards a society without fossil fuels is not compatible with the current socio-economic system that we call capitalism. The current system needs economic growth and does not know how to do this growth without increasing energy consumption. The proposals that are made that we will learn to grow without increasing consumption are not credible.

Therefore, we are facing a double challenge of great dimensions: the energy transition and the socio-economic transition. They say that they are taking on the first challenge, although it is necessary to continue demanding a more ambitious transformation. The second challenge is hardly talked about. Society needs to learn to demand this social change without waiting for the capitalist system to offer it to the mass media. We can't wait for the public media either because almost all political parties don't want to take on this change.

How to "climate literacy" in society? Those who are already literate must teach their social environment. Social movements can help channelize this task. We will wait for you!