Today, April 22, is celebrated the International Earth Day instituted since 1970 in the United States and recognized by the UN in 2009. Planet Earth faces the highest extinction rate since we lost dinosaurs more than 60 million years ago thanks to actions predatory forces promoted by capitalism from the 1st Industrial Revolution in the seventeenth century to the present. Climate change, deforestation, unsustainable agriculture, pollution and the use of pesticides are some of the human causes of declining biodiversity.

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NOTHING TO CELEBRATE ON EARTH DAY
Fernando Alcoforado*
Today, April 22, is celebrated the International Earth Day instituted since 1970 in the
United States and recognized by the UN in 2009. Planet Earth faces the highest
extinction rate since we lost dinosaurs more than 60 million years ago thanks to actions
predatory forces promoted by capitalism from the 1st Industrial Revolution in the
seventeenth century to the present. Climate change, deforestation, unsustainable
agriculture, pollution and the use of pesticides are some of the human causes of
declining biodiversity.
Since 1970, 40% of marine animals have disappeared and insect populations in some
parts of the world and freshwater animals have declined by 75%. It is estimated that
humans have negatively impacted 83% of the terrestrial surface, from ecosystems to
animal species. If we do not act now to build a sustainable society, the extinction of
animals and human beings themselves can be the great legacy of humanity.
In the age in which we live, humanity is confronted with the threat of global warming,
which tends to produce catastrophic climate change across the globe with serious
repercussions on economic activities and the worsening of humanity's social problems.
This threat tends to produce a genuine crisis of humanity that makes it imperative to
build a new society that acts in a sustainable, interdependent and rational way with
common goals in each country and on a planetary scale without which can be put in
check the survival of human beings and life on the planet.
The new society to be built would have to be sustainable from the economic, social and
environmental point of view. The concept of sustainability has become a key element in
the global movement, crucial to finding viable solutions to solve the world's biggest
problems. Global sustainability requires that the world population stabilize to a
maximum of eight billion people, sustainable economies are not driven by fossil fuels,
but by solar energy and its many direct and indirect forms (solar light for heating and
photovoltaic electricity, energy wind, water, and so on), nuclear power is no longer used
due to its long list of economic, social and environmental disadvantages and risks,
energy production is more decentralized and therefore less vulnerable to cuts or
blackouts and a much more efficient sustainable energy system to be used.
In a sustainable society, the transport system will be much less wasteful and polluting
than it is today. People will live much closer to their workplaces and will move around
in the vicinity by highly developed bus and rail transport systems, there will be fewer
private cars, bicycles will be an important vehicle in the sustainable transport system,
recycling will be the main source of raw materials in sustainable industries, and product
design will focus on durability and repeated use rather than the short and disposable life
of products. What is desirable will be a mindset based on recycling ethics when
recycling companies will take the place of current urban cleaning and disposal
companies, reducing the amount of waste by at least two-thirds.
In a sustainable society there will be a need for a restored and stabilized biological base,
land use will follow the basic principles of biological stability (nutrient retention,
carbon balance, soil protection, water conservation and diversity of species), rural areas

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will have greater diversity than currently with balanced land management, where there
will be rotation of plantations and species cultivation, there will be no crop wastage,
tropical forests will be conserved, there will be no deforestation to obtain woodland and
other products, millions of hectares of new trees will be planted, efforts to halt
desertification will transform degraded areas into productive land, the exhaustive use of
pasture will be eliminated, as will the food chain of affluent societies, to include less
meat and more grains and vegetables.
Present value systems that emphasize quantity, expansion, competition and domination
will be replaced by quality, conservation, cooperation and solidarity among human
beings. The decisive feature of a sustainable economy will be the rejection of the blind
pursuit of economic growth, gross domestic product will be recognized as a failed
indicator, economic and social as well as technological changes will be measured by its
contribution to sustainability, military budgets will be a small fraction of what they are
today, governments will invest in a strengthened United Nations peacekeeping
organization instead of keeping expensive and polluting defense institutions, nations
will decentralize power and decision making within their own borders while at the same
time establishing an unprecedented degree of cooperation and coordination at the
international level to address global problems.
It is in defense of life on planet Earth that it becomes imperative to establish a
sustainable society in each country and in the world to avoid that the existence of living
beings and of humanity itself is put in check. The new sustainable society at the global
level should be able to regulate international relations based on a Planetary Social
Contract aimed at promoting sustainable development for the benefit of all human
beings. This Planetary Social Contract should result from the will of the UN General
Assembly that would constitute the new World Parliament that would elect a World
Government representative of the will of all the peoples of the world. With a World
Government, it will be possible not only to order the global economy, to fight the war
and end the bloodbath that has characterized the history of humanity, but also to avoid
the depletion of the planet's natural resources and the catastrophic climate change that
threat to life on the planet.
On Earth Day, humanity must be aware of the need to build a sustainable society in
defense of life on our planet.
* Fernando Alcoforado, 79, awarded the medal of Engineering Merit of the CONFEA / CREA System,
member of the Bahia Academy of Education, engineer and doctor in Territorial Planning and Regional
Development by the University of Barcelona, university professor and consultant in the areas of strategic
planning, business planning, regional planning and planning of energy systems, is the author of 14 books
addressing issues such as Globalization and Development, Brazilian Economy, Global Warming and
Climate Change, The Factors that Condition Economic and Social Development, Energy in the world and
The Great Scientific, Economic, and Social Revolutions that Changed the World.