Bats, mosquitos, rats and pangolins are not to be blamed for epidemics. The fault lies with us and what we do with the ecosystems that these animals live in—how we manipulate and bring these animals into a new, artificial environment. That is the real cause of the coronavirus, something that will probably cost us a global recession. In other words, mutilating ecosystems comes with a very steep price.
The proliferation of hydroelectric dams is one of the ecosocial conflicts – or new wars – creating the most victims around the world. In Brazil, Colombia, Honduras and Ecuador, people who oppose these dams in defense of the commons are criminalised as ‘terrorists’, persecuted and even murdered.
A more critical argument in societies with a lack of environmental awareness such as ours is that of food sovereignty. Since genetically modified organisms are always developed by megacorporations, the farmers lose control over the means of production and end up doomed to poverty and subject to market fluctuations in order to acquire the subsistence goods. This can bring periods of prosperity, but also of malnutrition, poverty and migration to impoverished slums. Only the richest survive.
Amador Fernández-Savater talks with Guiomar Rovira, author of Networked Activism and Connected Multitudes, about punk, Zapatismo, technology, communication, and activist appropriation of the internet.