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I'd like to start with...
an important issue we have to tackle.
We have to solve a conflict of identity that we have.
Are we gods or an animal species?
If we are gods by any chance,
we can continue to do what we are doing to the planet.
If we are not, then we're going to have more and more difficulty.
A planet talking to another planet said:
"My back itches."
The other planet replied:
"Don't worry, this is humanity. It will soon be over."
One economist talking to another said:
"What a pain! Now we're going to have to worry about the planet!"
The other economist replied:
"The problem is us. The planet isn't threatened.
But don't worry. We'll soon find another planet."
So this is the economists' mindset.
And this is what led me to the ecological economy.
When I studied economics,
I realized that two variables have been excluded from the models:
people and nature as a whole.
There is not a single variable in the economists' models
that accounts for the natural resources.
The only analysis done is the introduction of tangible natural resources,
such as metals, oil, things one can touch and commercialize.
So, the myth of total separation between the economy and the environment,
within the traditional economy,
is very strong.
It rules most governments' policies,
the policies around us;
they are ruled by this thought.
I was even going to ask,
please, keep this information that Antonio Nobre gave us a secret,
that here in the Amazon there are 600 billion trees.
This info cannot leave this room!
Because, for an economist,
a tree has value only when it is cut to the ground.
The consequences, in practice, for everyone's lives,
of this mental model, of this thought, are very severe.
When the economy was first conceived,
the proposal of a thinker, a classic economist,
was that the economy should be a Siamese sister of biology.
Alfred Marshall proposed this, but he was ignored.
The economy today is a Siamese sister of classic mechanics from 200 years ago.
This is one of the problems that produces an economic thought
that completely ignores the social and environmental realities.
With regard to global warming, this point...
I was reassessing it, and there was a comment made by economists...
you know that the biggest threat of global warming is the end of water
and the end of food.
This has already been said here.
The thing is that economists realized:
"Well, if this happens, it's no problem at all.
Food represents a tiny part of the economy."
Therefore, if food disappears...
People, get ready,
you will have to eat cars, mobile phones, TVs.
Get ready because that's what will be left!
So, this view is the mental model
that has been built over centuries
and that has been ruling our history to this day.
I am going to be very brief in this part.
The history of life, of the planet, is extremely important.
For instance, the Earth, when it originated, didn't have a single drop of water.
Most of the water, 70%, was brought in
by comets that constantly hit the Earth.
And when Jupiter appeared, this gigantic planet, what happened?
There was cosmic peace for planet Earth.
So, thank Jupiter.
Without Jupiter we would not be here chatting right now.
When you drink a glass of water,
thank all the living creatures as well, all the plants,
because if all the plants and animals disappear from the face of the Earth,
the drinkable water will also disappear.
We are unable to perceive this interrelation of our lives,
of our economic system, with the whole natural environment.
This is a great problem of our world conception.
The problem does not lie only with the economists,
but with the way we have detached ourselves.
My heart, your hearts just beat
because there is a living creature on Earth that stores the sunlight.
Without them, we wouldn't be here having this conversation.
Bees are responsible for a great deal of food
that ends up on our plates.
The idea of sustainability begins by recognizing this interdependence.
And the history of the planet is very important.
The planet has no interest in us,
we will have to negotiate with the Earth.
This chart shows one of the consequences of this thought.
The larger square is the environment, the planet,
and inside, the economy and people, that is,
the economy and the people are a subsystem of the planet.
What is the view of economists?
The opposite.
They think that the planet is a subsystem of the Earth.
This way of viewing the world
is similar to that when we believed
that the Earth was flat,
or that the sun revolved around the Earth.
In fact, this is unrealistic.
With this view of the world,
we created a gigantic conflict
between the economic system and nature.
First conflict: the economy is linear, extract, produce, consume, discard,
extract, produce, consume, discard.
We believe in throwing away. Throwing away doesn't exist!
The system is closed in material terms.
The economy is totally circular.
We turned the Earth into an enormous landfill,
with us in it! Alive! Which is even worse.
The system is degenerative. Introducing burning of fossil fuels
undeniably is a totally unnatural process.
We are pursuing the chemical composition of dead planets,
which are rich in CO2.
Live planets are rich in oxygen, we're going in the opposite way.
That's not all. There is a large number of degenerative materials.
The economic system is infinite, whereas the planet is finite.
What is obvious is that the planet has a space
that cannot be increased.
Why on earth do we increase the number of people and things
at an infinite speed in a space that cannot be expanded?
Problems are inevitable.
We are not seeing the limits that the planet imposes.
Another funny thing in this debate
is that the environmentalists got into the fight with the economists
and they said: "We will run out of resources, we will run out of metals! We will…"
Guys, this is ridiculous because there is a problem there,
the planet is much bigger than us.
I even try to imagine this.
"Look, that tectonic plate that used to be here is already gone,
let's move on to the next one."
The planet doesn't impose any restriction as a supplier of resources.
The planet does impose restrictions as a depository
of what we are doing on it
and of the deterioration of the ecologic services.
This conflict, making the Earth a landfill,
will bring consequences, it has already,
the deterioration of ecologic services which we rely on to live.
What is this animal called "economy" like?
It has no mouth or stomach.
The source of resources doesn't matter much.
It has no bowels or ***.
It doesn't matter much where the resources end up.
It only has a circulatory system. It's floating in the air.
It has no grasp on reality.
It's completely autistic.
And this world view is the cause of our problems.
If we want to attain sustainability, we must invert the axis.
The economy is not more important than the people,
and the people are not more important than the planet.
It's the opposite.
The planet is more important than the people
and people, look how incredible, are more important than the economy.
As a matter of fact, we have a system today
in which people serve the economy, and not the other way around.
We have cities that serve the car traffic,
not the collectivity.
There is a huge axis inversion in all areas
because of this world view.
This night shot of the world map
tells various stories.
The first one is:
the rich countries have practically destroyed
almost all their natural forests.
The current economic development model
is in total conflict with the recovery,
preservation of the environment and nature.
If by chance, the rich countries were alone on the planet,
and there were no other territories,
they would have already suffered an environmental collapse a long time ago,
as was the case of Easter Island.
Global trade allows countries that have already gone beyond
what we call their "ecological footprint,"
through the import of products,
the possibility of continuing to explore ecologic resources,
especially water, which they no longer have.
So, the idea is to show you this.
If this model persists, we will have problems.
If the Chinese decide to use paper for the most basic things,
we will have problems.
We must find new means of production,
we must take the focus off growth
and put it on distribution.
The case of Easter Island is illustrated here.
The black line in this graph shows
the population growth of the island.
The Easter Island inhabitants relied upon a forest to live.
They needed the forest to make canoes to go fishing out at sea,
to build temples and keep the soil fertile for agriculture.
They cut every single tree and ended up in cannibalism.
The last ten islanders were enslaved by the Spanish.
The problem of Easter Island was local.
The one we are facing right now,
on our "Easter Island 2," is global!
Because of global trade
we are exceeding our means of production for the rest of the world
without considering how harmful it was for the environment.
Well, everyone, I am going to finish my talk here
with an important sentence.
First of all, we are voices, and several voices,
first person pronoun, forget it,
we must avoid it.
Second, avoid for goodness sake, the "I've never died" philosophy.
I am talking to you now, that means I've never died.
Won't I ever die?
The planet on which we are in these last seconds of its life
has never thrown out humanity.
Does that mean it never will?
Stephen Jay Gould was debating with economists,
and this is how is went.
The economists wrote:
"According to Gould, all life on Earth is doomed to extinction.
Therefore, if the economy causes an extinction,
we will be doing a favor to nature."
Gould replied: "It's true, all life on Earth is doomed to extinction,
but this occurs in geological eras, of millions of years,"
something that our brains, which live decades, are not able to grasp.
"And not in decades, and not caused by a single species."
Gould concluded: "it is very naïve to think
that this extinction will never turn back against those who caused it."
Thank you.