Editorial

September 17, 2019

By Zulma Prieto

Problems have to be approached in a sensible manner. If you are not willing to analyze the situation, see possible outcomes from the decisions you make and are willing to make real changes that will bring about a completely different outcome, then you know for sure that you will continue to be dealing with the same issue until a real solution is reached.

Currently, the political scene is full of smoke screens in more than one country. Escalation to war is one of the many things to be opposed. The massive migration all over the world due to war, climate changes and violence in general, are some of the pressing issues throughout the world. Also the nightmare of immorality that appears in all kinds of transactions leads us to believe that what we need more is a completely new system.

This coming Friday, September 20th, 2019, people are joining on a massive strike demanding climate action.

Who is leading this effort? It is not the world leaders, nor the business leaders, or the politicians everywhere. Instead the voice is raised by many young people who are demanding an opportunity to know and live in a clean planet. They are protesting all kinds of pollution. They want clean water to drink, clean air to breath and the possibility of eating non-contaminated food.

Can we applaud their efforts, promise them that things will change, but they only have to be patient and follow the appropriate channels, so that some solutions will come about probably twenty years from now? Young people probably have no knowledge of previous discussions on the matter, but they do know that we need change now, not twenty or thirty years from now. Unfortunately, there will be no change if we don’t find the center piece of the problem.

The world lives on oil. Oil is everywhere, not only as a fuel, but also as the massive amount of plastics that are present in daily life, especially in developed countries. The oceans are dying with the plastics that are suffocating the marine species and travel all the way to our table when we consume fish or seafood. Other species are also dying in the sea and on the land, whether be by pollution, lack of resources, or indiscriminate use of their habitat.

Oil is the machine that moves the world to wars and draws more and more countries into the struggle. In its name people have been invaded or have had to flee from their countries.

All the machinery has been put together in order for the world to function as a production unit that benefits the rich, who accumulate more and more. Meanwhile millions have to live with less and will never have a chance to come out of poverty because the laws have been written to favor the powerful and armies have been armed to protect their interests. In the name of their countries, young people have lost their lives, not knowing that they were fighting for monetary interests that had nothing to do with respect, dignity or love for others.

Greta Thunberg and her friends throughout the world are asking us to take a stand this coming Friday, September 20. Professors, organizers, and even politicians are responding to their call. It is a first step towards acknowledging the problem, it is the common people saying “No more” to the big corporations and governments that support them. It is a call for humankind. Young and old, we have only One earth and we have to take care of it, so that she will take care of us.