Dear friends

Like you, there are many anonymous voices outraged at the negligence of the authorities, guilty of doing nothing to protect the environment of the planet, guilt tinged with imprudence, failing to do their duty, and imperfection, doing insufficient or wrong things .

I see with concern the future that you and all the young people who come later will inherit, due to the consequences of the actions of our past generations, blind to the harmful effects they caused in the air, in the sea and in the ecosystems. I am already retired, and I will not suffer the most serious consequences, which will remain for you, but for years I have thought about how to convey some ideas about what we can do, which will save us.

First of all, I would like to congratulate you on your movement, having drawn attention so globally and bluntly to this problem, which is the most serious of humanity, and to wish you perseverance and all possible success. I have read the article “Why We Strike Again” in Project Syndicate of November 29, 2019 and from it these comments arise:

- The ineffectiveness of environmental summits has been coming for half a century: the first was in Stockholm in 1972, where 113 countries attended, and intended to stop environmental damage and promote sustainable development. Then meetings came every ten or twenty years, in Rio, Johannesburg, etc., to Paris. We know that they did not achieve their goals. They didn't even manage to create public awareness. Your alarm comes when you see the consequences of warming, the physical ones: deserts, hurricanes, fires and floods, and the human ones; territorial wars, poverty, hunger, emigration, protests, crime and looting. But there must be UN summits, as they bring everyone together and are the only place to give a global message. The main change of them is that they must be much more frequent, they must begin by recognizing that their objectives have not been met, and determine how to make them feasible.

- We must understand that this ineffectiveness is an evil consequence of our democratic culture, as elected leaders are primarily dedicated to their constituents, to those whom they promised material goods, and to their financial companies, including oil companies. That is why they do not fulfill the commitments of the summits, because nobody obliges them and because they think, obtusely, that carrying them out will stop their economies. How to get out of this trap is a mission for the movement that you drive: first, to convince humanity, not politicians, that our first priority is to keep this planet habitable, condition that is being lost. When that is a global, intense and urgent feeling, then the politicians will make it their own, for the selfish motive of being elected. That is the order, first to reach the global collective unconscious of humanity, create that desire and dress it with a feeling of love for nature, for the earth itself; The political world will follow that feeling. Then, destroying the prejudice that recovering ecosystems will stop the economy. It is one of the most talked about economic nonsense: recovering ecosystems and adapting to the new climate will give so much work that it will have us all busy, and if there is work there is well-being, right?

- Finally, we must understand that the root cause of environmental deterioration is our overpopulation. All living populations are under that rule: there are no more individuals than those allowed by the space they have. Man expanded until he filled the earth and continued to grow, because technology allowed him to extract more resources than ecosystems should give, and they began to get sick and deplete, that is the proof. It would not be enough to stop fossil energy, because it would have to be supplied with nuclear power for what we inhabitants need, that we are too many; the solar and wind don't reach. Nor would it be useful to recycle or avoid any contamination. Our population must be stabilized and most surely reduced.

In practical terms, there are many things that your movement can do, gathering all the resources you can get: 1) Organize to convey these messages, mainly to people; they, in turn, will give them to their leaders in every little town on earth. 2) Promote the ecological sciences that allow us to know how much population the planet supports, and how to recover the habitats we have damaged and conserve the ones we use. 3) Promote the political sciences that give organization, strength and means to a global movement to save the planet.