00:04:12.440You concluded this article by viscerally reminding us that, as oil is synonymous with blood, ocean fish are becoming synonymous with plastic.
00:04:23.700A collateral output of our addiction to fossil fuels, plastic has infiltrated nearly every food chain on the planet, epitomized by the projection that there will be more plastic than fish in the oceans by 2050.
00:04:36.4402050. The fact that approximately 1 million single-use plastic bottles are bought every minute
00:04:42.860and 8 million tons of plastic are dumped into the ocean every year is absolutely symbolic of how
00:04:50.120debilitated and disposable individualism and neoliberal capitalism has left us feeling about
00:04:58.660ourselves and the earth. And reducing plastic consumption is hardly contentious. It's an
00:05:05.280obvious necessity. Yet even the most educated and able people continue to come home from the
00:05:11.400grocery store riddled with plastic bags and straws and cups and packaging. So I wonder,
00:05:18.540how do you think we can encourage one another to realistically engage with the cannibalistic
00:05:24.160implications of our incomprehensible plastic consumption? That is a huge question, but it's
00:05:33.580a question that we should all ask ourselves because we have pushed ourselves into a disposable
00:05:43.980civilization where people are looking for the easiest way to consume the most amount of resources
00:05:52.540and people just want the easiest way to do things and not think of the consequences and so plastic
00:05:59.740is everywhere we're eating plastic we're having plastic in our clothing in our buildings we're
00:06:05.180having plastics in means of transportation it can be said to be a plastic civilization but this
00:06:11.980cannot be allowed to go on this is a a good time for us to remind ourselves and this requires that
00:06:20.860we have these conversations in our homes in our workplaces in our schools to remind ourselves that
00:06:27.420the dependence on plastic is destructive beyond what we can see. The manifestation in the oceans
00:06:35.920is just a clear case that should drive in this message because sooner than later, as scientists
00:06:42.900have estimated, just imagine having more plastics in the ocean than fish. And as you mentioned,
00:06:49.780when I went to the Plastic Museum in Bergen, Norway, I was absolutely astonished to sit
00:06:57.000It's beneath those plastics hanging on display.
00:07:01.740That amount of plastic from the belly of just one aquatic life form,
00:07:06.920it's a big testament to the destructive bent of humanity.
00:07:11.860And indeed, I found it inexcusable that we can just keep dumping plastics everywhere
00:07:18.860and thinking that once it's out of sight, then it's out of circulation.
00:07:33.100We should actually ban disposable plastic, one-use plastic elements across the world.
00:07:39.340We can't really afford to wait to do this one nation at a time.
00:07:44.280There should be a collective global ban on single-use disposable plastics.
00:07:50.340Yes, and in your 2017 TED Talk, you said the most complicated problems in the world can be solved with simple solutions.
00:07:59.700And I'm curious, when it comes to plastic, is the solution as simple as ceasing consumption?
00:08:06.120Because my concern is, what if we just substitute plastic for, say, biofuel-derived products and packaging?
00:08:13.140That's not actually getting at the root of our plastic consumption.
00:08:16.240It's actually just substituting it for another fossil fuel-derived product.
00:08:21.940So could you talk about the root of this plastic consumption and help us find solutions from that point?
00:08:28.980Exactly. I think that we have to get to the root of that problem because anything that threatens not just the survival of other beings but also human beings,
00:08:38.700we need to treat that as something that is extremely dangerous and serious.
00:08:42.480We often hear about the elements of using things, recycling, reusing, and of course, the major thing in this case should be refusing.
00:08:57.180We should refuse to use any form of packaging that is not biodegradable, anything that's just going to hang out there.
00:09:04.680I mean, look at what scientists tell us about even the simple plastics used in baby napkins.
00:09:14.040That's something very practical and very useful to keep the heavy stuff away from parents for disposal.
00:09:21.600But that would hang around in the ocean for 450 years.
00:11:44.360being driven by the burning and usage of fossil fuels,
00:11:48.680they can still keep on pushing this mode of development
00:11:52.420because that is what brings them cheap dollars, cheap money,
00:11:57.520pushes the burden on vulnerable communities living in the oil fields
00:12:02.020and vulnerable communities living on the fence lines of toxic refineries across the world.
00:12:08.080So, in Nigeria, actually, from the moment oil prices began to collapse, there were, as I mentioned, there were stirrings and thinking about life after oil.
00:12:22.800And some of us who have been campaigning for fossil fuels to be left in the ground are actually also developing campaigns in this direction, that they must be life after all, and that the oil civilization has had its day.
00:12:39.680And in the next few decades, the world would have to shift away from this very destructive mode of production and consumption.
00:12:49.060And so it would not be because oil companies are investing, expanding their investment in fossil fuel extraction, that this civilization will continue in that direction.
00:13:01.100Looking back in history of humanity, there are many civilizations that just disappeared.
00:13:06.920And today, historians are trying to unravel what happened, where was this break, what really went wrong with these people, what stopped that civilization from continuing.
00:13:16.040I believe the stubborn continuation in the dependence on fossil fuels may drive mankind to that kind of cataclysmic switch to civilization.
00:13:31.580Despite cheap dollars that the corporations and governments who are working with them are receiving at the moment, we just have to think about the future.
00:13:41.300And this thinking would be forced on the global system, the masses of people, the citizens who would make the change.
00:13:50.200Governments are unable to make a switch because our governance structures have been captured by fossil fuel corporations.
00:13:59.080Just think about the negotiations on global warming, generally.
00:14:03.240We, the whole world, I would say, every country has been glad to sign up to that agreement,
00:14:11.180but that agreement does not address the major cause of global warming,
00:14:16.440which is dependence on fossil fuels and release of carbon into the atmosphere.
00:14:23.520Now, the tendency is for negotiators and governments to think that whatever is broken can be fixed
00:14:30.360and that technology can solve the problem.
00:14:33.740And so you keep on depending on these destructive resources,
00:14:37.800but find ways of kind of offsetting the impacts
00:14:42.580or at least making yourself feel happy that you're doing something.
00:14:46.980And so you have, there's going to be a ramp up,
00:14:51.720There's going to be extreme technologies,
00:14:55.020so-called climate smart agriculture, for example,
00:14:58.980which would allow corporations to engineer crops to absorb more carbon. People are talking of
00:15:06.740deploying geoengineering, which means modifying the weather patterns, the planetary level.
00:15:16.100All this gives the impression that while you can keep on using plastics, you can keep on using
00:15:20.340phosphorus, there are always ways of kind of slowing down the impacts and postponing the evil
00:15:26.420But again, as I said, this was the thinking that led to the collapse of civilizations when no one was expecting a break to happen. And we don't want that to happen again.
00:15:37.040these technologies that are being created just so that we don't have to actually shift our
00:15:46.400way of life you know it's like okay you don't have to stop consuming you don't have to stop
00:15:52.720using fossil fuels using plastic having this extremely consumptive lifestyle because
00:15:58.280voila we have a techno fix of these gmo crops we have a techno fix of like you were saying the0.96
00:16:04.160geoengineering and it's not ever really looking at the root of the issue which yes of course this0.99
00:16:10.620issue is creating climate change but it's also creating a total breakdown in our relationships
00:16:16.320with one another and with the earth and i really think about that as this rooted question when we
00:16:22.100talk about techno fixes and how are techno fixes really challenging our relationships and how we
00:16:30.540understand and treat life itself. You know, I really want to talk about climate change with you,
00:16:36.840but I also want to just continue discussing oil extraction in Nigeria first. And
00:16:43.940there was just an intense statistic I was reading that there are spills equivalent to the size of
00:16:51.500the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska, which was 30 million gallons of crude oil. And there are
00:16:57.800spills equivalent to that that occur in the Niger Delta every year over the past 50 years. And I've
00:17:05.640heard you say that there are at least 300 spills every year. And then another example, Nigeria is1.00
00:17:12.880the second largest gas flare in the world under Russia. It's also the Niger Delta is classified
00:17:18.700amongst the top 10 most polluted places in the world. And these statistics make me consider
00:17:25.640how transnational corporations view huge geographic areas of Africa as sacrifice zones and the level
00:17:34.260of disregard for Africa and the Middle East is just gut-wrenching. So I just wanted to hear a
00:17:41.260little bit more from you around what's happening in Nigeria, in the Niger Delta, when it comes to
00:17:48.160oil extraction and spills and contamination and maybe explain to us why is there such an excessive
00:17:57.480number of spills and is there any spill response that is even remotely adequate that happens after
00:18:05.120a spill has occurred you talk about the number of spills that have occurred over the past 50 years
00:18:12.420now extended it's now 60 years so so the impact is expanding and persistent now there are many
00:18:21.700reasons to account for this one is that all infrastructure is 60 years old in many places
00:18:27.940in the delta and they've not been adequate in this part of the conversation naimu describes how
00:18:36.020pipelines that were designed with a lifespan of 20 to 25 years many have never been updated
00:18:42.420are now twice their life expectancy or more. There's equipment failure
00:18:46.980everywhere and corporations continue to blame solely on third-party
00:18:50.520interferences or simply blaming the victims instead. On top of this, sadly
00:18:55.560third-party interference does exist today.
00:18:59.400There's been an increase in third parties breaking pipelines as a political
00:19:07.620action in terms of military violent resistance to degradation and economic exploitation but that
00:19:17.460has stopped over at least for over a year now we'll not be hearing about any kind of group
00:19:24.260blowing up pipelines to make a political point but we still have massive oil theft going on in
00:19:31.940the region because the tech is at industrial level we cannot exonerate the oil corporations
00:19:40.180we cannot say they are not aware of what is going on because no matter how much oil is
00:19:45.380being stolen they're still making their their mark in terms of export quantities export volumes
00:19:51.860which goes to show that they are complicit into in the horror that is going on in the oil fields
00:19:58.900of the Niger Delta. So if so much oil can be taken and we have illegal refineries in the swamps,
00:20:09.780which are highly polluting, and then others are just taking the crude and probably exporting them,
00:20:16.980it means that there's a whole complex of forces.
00:20:22.740In this part of the conversation, Naimo describes that there's a whole complex web of forces
00:20:28.960exploiting the region today and environmental catastrophes taking place without anyone being
00:20:33.460held accountable. Multinational corporations that are allowed access to the oil are entwined
00:20:39.720in joint ventures with the government's own economic interest. So with the oil company
00:20:44.560acting as producer and the government as joint shareholder, any regulatory systems by the
00:20:49.840government are inherently flawed by their shared interest and economic gain. And any representations
00:20:55.020in government in Nigeria that have tried to break up this corruption have been met with intense
00:20:59.820resistance from the oil companies. This is why the same problems exist today. The issues of
00:21:05.360ecological destruction, harm to the communities that live in the oil-producing regions, and as
00:21:10.020Naimo insists, the harm done to the national psyche continues to persist.
00:21:13.800Now, the other issue is gas flaring, or the burning of gases associated with crude oil
00:21:43.040The main reason being that neither the government nor the oil companies have invested in the infrastructure to capture the gas.
00:21:49.160Nigeria has said they will end the gas flaring by 2020,
00:21:52.260and the World Bank has set a target for ending the practice of gas flaring internationally by 2030.
00:21:57.880Even so, the economic incentive for the government of Nigeria to install the new infrastructure seems highly unlikely.
00:22:03.780But again, the world is presenting natural gas as a cleaner source of energy with regard to global warming.
00:22:14.980But the fact is also that scientists have found that the methane in natural gas is actually in the short term more harmful perhaps than carbon dioxide.
00:22:25.680So it may look clean, but it's still creating the problems.
00:22:29.120So we don't really have an option that to shift to cleaner forms of energy in the long run.
00:22:37.820And of course, also what we would prefer in the short time.
00:22:41.540If critical investment is being made to save the planet and to save humanity, I mean, that would be the best option.
00:22:48.800But because of the heavy amount of the trillions of dollars still being locked in fossil reserves,
00:22:59.040the industries want to keep extracting them until they get the last dropout.
00:24:13.840right and it's industries and corporations and governments who are getting the benefit of
00:24:29.100this fossil fuel extraction i was reading that 70 to 85 percent of nigeria's government revenue
00:24:35.860comes from oil money but despite the fact that nigeria has been generating profits from oil
00:24:42.000and gas over the last six decades, the national savings account is $1 billion compared to Norway's
00:24:49.120$1 trillion in their sovereign wealth fund. So Nigeria is still constantly having to borrow and
00:24:56.240source money for any other project or programs because even though the government of Nigeria
00:25:02.940is receiving money from this oil and gas development, it's still so much less than
00:25:09.880the transnational corporations. It's just interesting to contrast the governments of
00:25:15.220the United States and Nigeria in their relationships to the fossil fuel regime, and
00:25:19.120you know, it definitely begs the question of who exactly is benefiting from transnational oil
00:25:25.340companies exploiting resources, flaring gas, and contaminating land and waterways.
00:25:31.060So I guess maybe we could have a question of, is the Nigerian government truly benefiting, or is it the transnational corporations tied to larger imperialistic powers, and how does the Nigerian government and the transnational corporations interplay with one another?
00:25:53.940the government of nigeria and oil corporations are in unholy wedlock
00:26:04.460that's the kind of relationship that we have and it's not just in nigeria you can extend that to
00:26:12.180virtually every country that depends on on extractive industry so that's both in the
00:26:19.620global north and the global south. And so, as you mentioned, the amount in the Nigerian sovereign
00:26:27.040wealth fund is so small because for some reason, over the years of military dictatorship in Nigeria,
00:26:35.100which spanned a period of 30 years, there were only periods when we had some form of democracy
00:26:40.820before the military stepped again and finally left at 1989. Within that time, the federation
00:26:46.780seems to be a truly federal system. We began to run a centrist system where resources from crude
00:26:55.920oil goes to a central post and then is distributed across the nation to the subunits or states.
00:27:02.940Now, the fabric of economic arrangement was completely altered by resources from crude oil.
00:27:10.260And this affected other economic sectors like agriculture.
00:27:14.680Previously, obviously, Nigeria was not dependent on crude oil until the late 60s and early 1970s.
00:27:21.880Before then, Nigeria was a hugely agricultural nation.
00:27:26.080And there was elements of development of manufacturing and service sector industries.
00:27:31.820But oil put this down completely, more or less.
00:27:35.660And then structural adjustment programs by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund,
00:27:41.420setting the degradation of possibilities of the country investing in and moving in another direction
00:27:48.760that would not be so tied up to one revenue source.
00:27:52.820So what we have now, the amount is so small in the kitty
00:27:59.660because whatever resource coming from oil was being shared out
00:28:04.420to the constituent units in the political arrangement in the country.
00:28:08.560And so this situation is still continuing today.
00:28:13.600And this is why it's been very difficult to actually look critically
00:28:19.180at the environmental pollution situation of the oil field communities
00:28:25.380Because all that the political system demands is a continuous, unimpeded flow of financial resources into the national ports at whatever cost.
00:28:39.280And this is why we've had major struggles from the 1990s.0.58
00:28:44.940The Ugoni struggle has been very emblematic.
00:28:47.140The execution of cancer we were in 1995 was a certain high point in the struggle.0.59
00:28:55.040and how vicious and dangerous it could be so yes because this was and has continued to be
00:29:02.960a single source economy single revenue economy everything has been put in place to ensure
00:29:10.720that that source is not disturbed the nigeria is one of the most militarized section of nigeria
00:29:17.360today if you're traveling on the highways in the region or the creeks you're passing so many so
00:29:24.240many military checkpoints you could see the next one from where you are at one point and so you
00:29:31.520would not be wrong to think that maybe there's war going on in the territory but this is all a means
00:29:38.320of showing that look we're not going to spare anything to ensure that oil flows and the moment
00:29:45.280when we had experiences of military militant reaction or subversion of the pipelines you find
00:29:54.000that both the corporation and the government is so interested in restoring the flow repairing
00:29:59.440getting getting some kind of peace restoring the pipelines and getting the oil to flow
00:30:04.560without looking at the issues surrounding the problems now there's some inklings some beginnings
00:30:12.080to reflect more on what can be done and so the current government is drawing up what it calls
00:30:18.320a new vision for the Niger Delta. There's been quite a bit of vision over the years, but nothing
00:30:24.240has really manifested at the end of the day. And I should also mention one sign of hope with regard
00:30:30.560to the region is that in 2011, the United Nations Environment Programme issued a report after
00:30:39.200assessing the Oguni environment that validated everything that the Oguni people have been
00:30:43.920complaining of. And at the moment, efforts are being put in place to begin to clean up decades0.93
00:30:51.140of oil pollution that has been abandoned in that territory as a starting point for tackling the
00:30:59.120cleanup of the inaugurator. It's not a thing that would be completed in a day. The estimates have
00:31:06.100it that to clean up Ogone alone would require about 25 to 30 years of work for the environment
00:31:15.440And then, of course, we have this just a small part of the Niger Delta.
00:31:19.820So it's a desperate environmental situation that requires actually
00:31:24.800environmental emergency to be declared in that region.
00:31:28.780But, yeah, so the struggle continues and the people are standing strong,
00:31:36.560demanding that the pollution stops and that cleanup begins.
00:31:41.540And we are hopeful that politicians would eventually wake up to the reality of the fact that you cannot continue with business as usual when the people are dying and life expectancy has been cut so short in the region by extension.
00:31:58.140This affects, of course, everybody at the end of the day.
00:32:01.600Well, I'm so grateful for those who are standing up in Nigeria against big fossil fuel transnational corporations and the militarization of your country because of these transnational imperialistic powers that have come in and just colonized the area for extracting this resource that's poisoning this land.
00:36:42.620has this settler colonialism pitted Nigerians
00:36:46.060against one another and that leads me to this other thought around white supremacy and how
00:36:52.460white supremacy is really a global predicament but it's unique in different parts of the world
00:36:59.140so i'm wondering what does racism look like in nigeria and how is that tied into the settler
00:37:06.900colonialism framework i would say that we have elements of environmental racism in nigeria
00:37:14.680because what the transnational oil corporations are doing in Nigeria,
00:37:18.820they wouldn't dare do in their home countries.
00:37:21.340And so that's clearly an issue of environmental racism.
00:37:25.140Then again, the neocolonial situation is alive and well.
00:37:29.340Africa has been unfortunate over the years to have imperial forces
00:37:34.900actively subverting leadership that cares for the continent and for our peoples.
00:37:41.100And so you have the neocolonial arrangement.
00:37:44.680driven by forces of neoliberalism, entrenched in the governance and economic structures,
00:37:51.180both on the continent and globally. So right now, yes, what is going on is not isolated,
00:37:57.860it is not unique, it is not different from the overall paradigm where might is right and Africa
00:38:08.520is still seen as a place for exploitation, a place for extractive activities. And sometimes
00:38:19.220I hate to say this, but I do really think that sometimes we have the feeling that some
00:38:24.560forces would like to see Africa without Africans. So it would just be a reserve where you go1.00
00:38:29.680to take gold, take oil, take precious minerals, or take the land to grow food for other people.
00:38:36.140This is why we're having attacks on so many dimensions, land grabs, pollution of genetic material resources, forcing all kinds of violence and conflicts.
00:38:50.820So most of these conflicts are the theaters of war and degradation are not because of internal reasons.
00:38:58.860They are externally generated for many reasons.
00:39:02.960I mean, we've seen, if you want to look away from the Middle East, look at Northern Africa, look at a place like Libya, the kind of violence that was wrecked on that nation and in many other places.0.66
00:39:13.860So you can just see that the global petro-military complex, imperial neo-colonial forces, are bent on ensuring that the 1% retains the power, retains the upper hand, and continues to exploit and suck everywhere dry.
00:39:34.400But the only hope, this is not just hope, it's something that we have to organize around, by solidarity of peoples across the continent, because I see this everywhere I go, that the negative activities in our countries and continents is not because of the collective will of the northern society,
00:39:59.620But just because of the power, the military might and economic power behind corporate interests and behind the political structures that support them.
00:40:10.180So people come together in solidarity.
00:40:13.080People join forces to stand in defense of Mother Earth and in defense of our common humanity.
00:40:20.340I believe that we, at the end of the day, sooner rather than later, will be able to break the shackles of these oppressive forces.
00:40:29.620Thank you so much for taking us through that train of thought. And I remembered reading you say that, quote, we may have Africa without Africans, and thinking of the complexity of that from the social dynamics and the fossil fuel extraction, and then climate change, which is something that we've touched on a few times in this conversation, but something that I really want to focus on right now.
00:40:56.800In previous interviews, I've heard you say that Africa experiences 50% more in terms of temperature rise than the global average.
00:41:06.260So that means if global average temperatures rise by 6 degrees, Africa will experience a 9 degree rise.
00:41:13.940And in addition to temperature rises, climate change will also exacerbate terrorism and social unrest,
00:41:21.540as natural disasters are pushing 26 million people into poverty each year.
00:41:26.800And research has suggested that unless there is a massive transformation, by the year 2050, the continent of Africa may experience more than a 50% increase in conflict.
00:41:37.880So this is perhaps one of the heaviest topics to sit with.
00:41:44.020Definitely, you've captured everything the way it is.
00:41:47.140And this is why some of us really worry about so much applause and celebration that we've seen around the world over the Paris Agreement.
00:41:55.820The Paris Agreement aims at a temperature increase of, although they say well below 2 degrees or 1.5 degrees, but between well below 2 and 1.5, I don't really see what that means.
00:42:12.040So it would appear that the Paris Agreement aims at two degrees Celsius temperature increase.
00:42:17.640But based on the nationally determined contributions about emission reduction, estimates are that we're already aiming for about three degrees temperature rise above pre-industrial levels at the close of the century.
00:42:30.440So that would mean an average of about more than maybe 4.5 degrees for Africa.
00:42:35.860And that, to me, would be a clear case of setting the continent on fire, because that would be extremely difficult for people to survive on the continent.
00:42:46.060So the celebrated climate agreement does not bring any joy to, it shouldn't make anybody complacent that we've got anything.
00:42:55.560There's no scientifically determined way of cutting emissions.
00:43:01.600Nations are just going to do what they feel like doing.
00:43:03.620what nations would naturally feel like doing is nothing to do as little as they could this is
00:43:09.600why already some who have proposed to do certain things say that they've already met the target
00:43:14.060that they set for themselves and there's no way to measure to hold anybody accountable
00:43:17.880so we we have the climate architecture for the world today doesn't portend any reason for for
00:43:26.640hope for Africa, because if it's a question of climate action in terms of reducing emissions
00:43:35.340at source, the polluting nations are not willing to do that. They rather want to find ways of0.98
00:43:40.640compensating for the pollution and continuing the pollution, which doesn't just make sense at all.
00:43:46.140Then secondly, in terms of climate finance, we are finding a lot of liturgy about raising funds,
00:43:53.840new additional funding for climate action for vulnerable, poor nations.
00:44:00.480And this is very troubling because the rich nations make it seem like it's for lack of
00:44:23.840Now, up to this time, that is looking like an uphill task.
00:44:28.880And governments are trying to readjust the arrangement to ensure that as little additional funding comes into that,
00:44:36.180whether we're counting other grants and aid and loans as part of climate finance.
00:44:41.500So that really shows a lack of readiness at a global level of real action to halt the trend that will be catastrophic for Africa and for other vulnerable continents and territories.
00:44:55.520For one, if you just look at the level of expenditure by rich countries on warfare, which stands at about 1.7 trillion US dollars a year at the moment, over the past few years, and then it's tough to raise 100 billion by 2020 for global warming.
00:45:17.220I think we're having, the world is having its priorities completely upside down because the more the impacts unattended to, the more we're going to have global challenges in terms of the economy, in terms of peace and security.1.00
00:45:33.720And no matter how many walls nations build around on their borders, we're not going to stop the wave of climate refugees that will be coming when things get really worse than they are now.0.99
00:45:44.480Already we're having a lot of movements across the Sahara Desert, and many people are losing their lives trying to cross the Mediterranean into Europe, Africa, and from elsewhere.1.00
00:45:55.600But all the deaths and all the pains have not stopped the flow.
00:46:00.340They have not stopped the tide of flow because people are desperate to escape impacts that are just beginning.
00:46:07.140In Nigeria, we're having displacements due to sea level rise.
00:51:11.220Well, to wrap this conversation up, this incredible conversation that's really been so informative
00:51:18.600and emotional, I want to speak to a topic on reclaiming memory, which you have spoken
00:51:28.360about in your organization, Home of Mother Earth Foundation. And I want to quote part of that by
00:51:35.100saying that it says, building movements that recover memory, dignity, and a harmonious living.
00:51:40.840And you've emphasized that solutions to our problems reside in our memories. So I'm wondering,
00:51:46.360how do movements rooted in memory work differ from revolutions built upon dreams or other models of
00:51:53.760transformation that are perhaps more rooted in emphasizing growth or
00:51:57.540imagination. Memory is a storehouse for creativity for innovation because the
00:52:07.820truly innovative human is one that lives in harmony with nature. Fighting nature
00:52:14.980is clearly the pathway to failure because nature can defend herself nature can actually do without
00:52:27.140us we're not masters of the universe the universe is too deep for for man to comprehend we're too
00:52:36.660finite to comprehend everything around us we're just one part of the complex of beings
00:52:44.980on the planet and going back into memory is a way of recovering our dignity it's a way of
00:52:53.540recovering our humility as just a part of a great complexity of beings around us and beings within
00:53:02.940us this clearly is a way to the future we have to go back to the past and the past is not a cake
00:53:11.180The past is innovation, is harmony. The past is a recovery of solidarity, of understanding that the best way forward is for us to go together.
00:53:25.520And the best way forward is to recognize ourselves in others.
00:53:30.180And if we see ourselves as being detached from everything else, then, of course, we would have lost who we truly are.