Opinion 

A Planet on the Alert

Opinion 

A Planet on the Alert

Luis Fernández-Galiano 
14/06/2022


From snow to lava, in Spain this has been a year of extreme events. Nothing relates the blizzard Filomena with the eruption of Cumbre Vieja, but both scares took place as we tried to recover from a historic pandemic that had brought the planet to a standstill. The picture of empty detained cities was as dramatic as seeing them covered in a unanimous blanket of snow or watching tongues of incandescent lava spilling down slopes and fields being buried under a silent sheet of ash, but these literary images cannot hide the death and anguish inflicted by the virus, the damages and urban paralysis caused by the storm, or the disappearance of homes, crops, and memories beneath the mute empire of the volcano. Alert to the uncertain wisdoms of epidemiologists, meteorologists, and vulcanologists, we want to ignore other events that are shaking a world caught deep in a climate crisis: the geopolitical shock triggered by the withdrawal from Afghanistan and the formation of Aukus; the economic shock generated by the rising cost of transporting goods; and the energy shock that has its origins in the effort to replace fossil fuels...[+]


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