The Age of Mourning for the Earth: Resources and Questions of Seventy Years of Humanity, 1950s-2020s
Industrial civilization, with the smoke of coal and the roar of iron in the background, has built prosperity while voraciously digging for resources. However, behind that prosperity lies a history of exploitation, deprivation, and alteration of nature. As Karl Marx pointed out in his "The Theory of Capital," the composition of capital creating value through the plundering of nature and the incorporation of nature, along with labor, as a source of surplus value is the very basis of this environmental destruction. In other words, nature has become "a component of capital" as an object of exploitation, not merely a background.
As a result, global warming has progressed, the ecological web has been torn, species loss and ocean acidification have become daily news. Across national boundaries, as rubber trees, oil, ores, and forests were consumed, human-made machines and factories continued to spread like the light of dawn. But behind the scenes, the climate did not return, the ice melted, farmlands were ruined, and cities were forced to confess to submergence.
Calls for cooperation echoed from around the world. UN conferences, climate change treaties, and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were raised. But national sovereignty and economic interests became a barrier, as rich countries' past carbon footprints intersected with developing countries' hunger for growth. Human beings chased after resources, wanted power, but did not clarify "what they wanted. This is why the global global concerto has not yet properly begun.
The close link between capital and nature, the pursuit of power and the cycle of destruction, and the chasm between the ideal of cooperation and the reality. Humanity is being challenged in these times. What will we leave behind after having extracted resources, cut down nature, and expanded civilization? Can we envision a future without mourning the earth?
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