My General Winter

Versión en Español

Perhaps the two greatest dangers that Europe has ever faced have been the Napoleonic invasions and the campaigns of Hitler, none of them could be defeated by the Alliance of Western nations and, at the end,  only the Russians were able to stop them; throwing away the dreams of conquering the world of the one who enacted the Age of Enlightenment but passed through the arms all  those who did not accept it, and the dreams of the one who, with his narcissistic personality and inferiority complex, intended to rebuild the lost empire of the Nibelungs based on unrealistic racist theories. However, from the purely rational point of view, leaving aside the enormous suffering of the thousands of displaced Russian peasants and the temple of a Russian army, which then showed the same level of barbarity than his pursuers; what finally protected Europe of its doom was the winter, that terrible and thick winter of the Russian steppes, that winter that has been used by Moscow as a buffer of protection against Western encroachments. Winter was the final caused of the fall of two great dangers, is it possible that even now, winter tries again to protect an continent threatened by climate?

While assuming that nature defends a subcontinent is a little less than a romantic vision of a stark environmental reality, it represents, symbolically, a structural picture of the Earth line of defence; the defence of a much greater danger than the most distinguished general could have ever faced. The last few weeks we have heard increasingly frequent news of flights suspension in Europe and the United States due to heavy snow and cold waves. In Colombia almost half the country has been seriously affected by floods caused by the endless rain. Technically winter has just begun a few days ago, thereafter, the consequences may get more deadly serious whilst the days pass by. It is going to put at risk not only air transportation but also several economic sectors: industry, transport, tourism, agriculture, etc.

Driven by a completely irrational blindness that, at first glance, seems to be easy to explain, the major economies: USA, Japan and Canada insist on not giving a 100% support to environmental treaties, under the pretext of protecting their economies. However, the economic hub of the planet is based, for many commodities, on a schedule, in a timetable of delivery orders, in a production chain that demands efficiency in order to meet demand. By altering these factors, the global economy starts to crumble and inevitably can lead to two scenarios: the awareness that the operation of a single type of resource as a mainstay of the economy (fossil fuels) is not successful in the medium term or the submission of a profound structural change in society that would be resigned to living in a dark underworld where extreme uncontrollable  heat and intense cold can only be tolerable thanks to artificial mechanisms which then become a piece of the complex mechanism of the imbalance in the production of pollutants.

Perhaps the tail end of this winter is only a desperate Earth warning attempt; a warning of the imminent dangers that the lack of environmental awareness is generating. It is sad, however, to see that the news don’t cover the situation with enough emphasis. Faced with such a delicate situation it is nothing but intriguing not to hear of conclusive measures to address climate change. A few days ago NATO congratulated Canada for having invested a great deal more of money on weapons, recognizing its commitment to the international «defence”, but nothing has been said on why Canada decided not to ratify the Kyoto treaty,  which everybody knows is only to protect its own economy based on an ever increasing exploitation of oil in Alberta and the ability to exploit large deposits of natural gas in Quebec.

History suggests that Europeans and Asians see the future not in terms of years but of decades. Could it be that governments know more than the general public ignores on the face the consequences of the destruction of the natural mechanisms of climate change? Although, that may sound like a classic film and conspiracy theories, it is confusing not to see more conclusive reactions on the agencies that should worry about the sustainability of humanity over the long term. If that goal is purely financial, having no humans to consume should not be a smart economy move.

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