premature deaths. People take sick, for example, from breathing high levels of smoke from fuels used
in cooking or heating. There is also pollution that affects everyone, caused by transport, industrial
fumes, substances which contribute to the acidification of soil and water, fertilizers, insecticides,
fungicides, herbicides and agrotoxins in general. Technology, which, linked to business interests, is
presented as the onlyway of solving these problems, in fact proves incapable of seeing the mysterious
networkof relations between things and so sometimes solves one problemonly to create others.
21.
Account must also be taken of the pollution produced by residue, including dangerous waste
present in different areas. Each year hundreds of millions of tons of waste are generated, much of it
non-biodegradable, highly toxic and radioactive, from homes and businesses, from construction and
demolition sites, from clinical, electronic and industrial sources. The earth, our home, is beginning to
lookmore andmore like an immense pile of filth. In many parts of the planet, the elderly lament that
once beautiful landscapes are now covered with rubbish. Industrial waste and chemical products
utilized in cities and agricultural areas can lead to bioaccumulation in the organisms of the local
population, evenwhen levels of toxins in those places are low. Frequently nomeasures are taken until
after people’s healthhas been irreversiblyaffected.
22.
These problems are closely linked to a throwaway culture which affects the excluded just as it
quickly reduces things to rubbish. To cite one example, most of the paperwe produce is thrown away
and not recycled. It is hard for us to accept that the way natural ecosystems work is exemplary: plants
synthesize nutrients which feed herbivores; these in turn become food for carnivores, which produce
significant quantities of organic waste which give rise to new generations of plants. But our industrial
system, at the end of its cycle of production and consumption, has not developed the capacity to absorb
and reuse waste and by-products. We have not yet managed to adopt a circular model of production
capable of preserving resources for present and future generations, while limiting as much as possible
the use of non-renewable resources, moderating their consumption, maximizing their efficient use,
reusing and recycling them. A serious consideration of this issue would be one way of counteracting
the throwaway culture which affects the entire planet, but itmust be said that only limited progress has
beenmade in this regard.
Climate as a commongood
