• by Ignacio Ramonet
• Thursday, January 19, 2012
• Inter Press Service

The grave financial crisis and the economic horrors besieging European societies are causing people to forget that climate change and the destruction of biodiversity remain the greatest threats to humanity, as they were reminded only last December at the climate summit in Durban, South Africa. If we do not radically change the dominant modes of production imposed by economic globalisation, we will soon reach the point of no return, after which human life on the planet will become gradually unviable, writes Ignacio Ramonet, editor of "Le Monde diplomatique en español".

Ramonet writes in this article that our planet simply does not have enough energy resources for the entire global population to use without restriction. For the world's 7 billion to consume energy at the rate of the average European, we would need the resources of two earths, while extending the American consumption level worldwide would require three.

The human being and his predatory model of production are the primary causes of the destruction of biodiversity. In the last three decades the excesses of neoliberal globalisation have accelerated this process and led to the emergence of a world dominated by economic terror in which the financial markets and giant private corporations have reestablished the law of the jungle, survival of the fittest.

(*) Ignacio Ramonet is editor of "Le Monde diplomatique en español".

© Inter Press Service (2012) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service

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