Leonard Boff, a very important Brazilian opinion maker and also a theologist, addressed a letter do Workers Party (PT) which meeting was held recently. He remembered that the election campaign officially will begin in a moment and there is a risk that we sank in a childish discussion between Lula and last President – Fernando Henrique Cardoso. His concern is that the great issue is far away from these por comparisons and is related actually to the environment.
For both contenders when the issue is development and nature, the paradigm is the same, and thew will probably serve to distract voters from real problems that Brazil and the world will face.
A serious electoral competition, the height of the planetary phase of humanity and the importance of Brazil in it, should be the issues and also the future to be built collectively. Who has the best design to our people and their relationship to the nascent global society? Who is proposing an essential contribution to the dramatic scenarios looming on the horizon?
Boff made three suggestions to the Workers Party. He first wrote on the motto of the national meeting – The Great Transformation. This is the same name of a book written by Karl Polanyi (1944) in which he shows how the liberalism turned everything into a commodity. Is this the Great Transformation thought by PT? To be something else, the party must take seriously this irrefutable fact: The Earth has changed because we are already in global warming. The wheel can no longer be stopped, only diminish its speed. If the thermometer of the Earth rises to more than two degrees Celsius over the coming decades, as provided by the best research center, will face Brazil and tribulation in the world of desolation. Many PAC projects (Brasil´s Government programs to accelerate progress) may be canceled. If they do not include climate issues in their program they will show lack of practical intelligence and historical irresponsibility.
Another equally disturbing issue is the unsustainability of the system Earth. As of September 23, 2008 we learned that the Earth has exceeded 30% in its ability to restore the goods and services necessary for life. We are consuming today what we will need tomorrow. If we universalize the consumption level of the middle classes worldwide, including the eighty million Brazilians, we would now have three land equal to this. This model of growth, as it seems behind the PAC, shows its viability in the medium and long term. Not that we stop producing. We produce but within a different paradigm of less predator-Earth system, with an agreement regarding the supportability of each ecosystem and a wide social inclusion, designed with an ethic of care, universal responsibility and the pursuit of the good life for all.
Finally, the Workers Party (PT) must raise the fact that Brazil is certainly the key to the balance of the planet. He is the power of water, the holder of the largest forests, large dioxide sequestration of carbon and regulatory climate, with great biodiversity and vast arable land and can be a table set for the famines of the world, with unmatched ability to generate alternative energy and a highly creative people, who did a test of civilization of the most significant, non-imperialist, and with an enchanting view of the world that allows you, in the midst of contradictions, celebrate their feasts, cheering for their teams and dance at carnivals… crucial characteristics to give a human face to globalization in progress.
Great talk! Will PT listen to it?
BRAZIL FACTOR 