After two years fallow due to the pandemic, this summer has been the closest thing to normality known before the virus. The tourism sector has hung up the sign of complete, and the airports were bursting with patient travelers who have resignedly endured all kinds of abuse from the airlines. The desire to recover the trips that the restrictions and quarantines had left in a wish have come true this year while, out of the corner of our eyes, we glimpse a future full of uncertainties in a world without direction.
There were those who insisted on repeating that we would come out of the pandemic stronger, but this mantra has been shown to be nothing more than a resource from a self-help manual. After the health crisis we have made every possible effort to try to do exactly the same as we had done until then, but the truth is that reality is changing at full speed before our eyes. Meanwhile, oblivious to it, we grab the umbrella tightly and limit ourselves to waiting with the hope that the storm subsides.
The global energy crisis, aggravated by Russia's war in Ukraine, has overwhelmed the economy and has been the factor that has contributed most to inflation which, in the words of the chairman of the United States Federal Reserve, is going to be painful for companies and families. Today, some industrial sectors have already slowed down their activity due to the skyrocketing costs of gas and electricity, and too many homes on the European continent are going to join the cruel statistic of energy poverty.
But the perfect storm is completed by climate change, which has gone from being a noble cause for environmentalists to being evidence for everyone. Europe is suffering the worst drought in 500 years, according to the latest report from the Global Drought Observatory, attached to the European Commission. Half of the European territory is in a drought alert phase and many of the continent's main rivers are at the lowest levels ever recorded. In southern Europe, where droughts are defining of the Mediterranean climate, we have already experienced situations of lack of water before. The novelty is that this occurs in central European countries such as Germany, France or the Netherlands. And in this domino, without rain and with water reserves at a minimum, the next chip to fall will be the ability of agriculture and livestock to produce enough food at a reasonable price.
Joan Manuel Serrat used to sing years ago that “el món està ben girat” (the world is upside down) and seeing the future that lies ahead, you have to be very willing to think that everything will be fine. Our main urgencies have to do with the climate emergency, which is currently aggravated by the energy crisis accelerated by Putin's war.
We no longer need more evidence to execute a shock plan, with ambitious objectives that ensure the energy sovereignty of the countries. In our case, the resource of the sun and the wind has to be a priority. For this reason, bureaucratic requirements must be simplified to the maximum, also in Catalonia, and priority must be given to the execution of facilities that, while reducing energy dependence on external factors, also minimize or eliminate emissions that contribute to global warming. We are late for the energy transition, but that, more than an excuse to lament, should be the stimulus to make up for lost time.
"With what they spend on bombs they could kill hunger," says the song. We have been at war for six months in the heart of Europe and no one knows how much longer it will last, but in addition to the barbarism in Ukraine, the global effects are considerable and will be more present when winter arrives. When the energy crisis, war, inflation, cold weather or drought focus our concerns, it is easy to enter into a spiral of collective discouragement that feeds paralysis and delays ambitious decision-making.
The cliché says that we can come out of crises stronger because they are an opportunity to accelerate changes. The pandemic, surely, the only positive legacy that it leaves us is having advanced a few decades in extending the virtues of teleworking. Now we have to take advantage of the energy crisis to make up for lost time and stop global warming. And it is that, as Serrat sang, when the world is turned upside down, “the demons are happy”.
