O Rio Grande do Sul In the last week, it has been facing the effects of an extreme weather event, already classified as the biggest socio-environmental disaster in the state’s history. Dozens, perhaps hundreds, of people and animals have lost their lives, and thousands are homeless. Scenes that look like something out of war films unfold, highlighting, once again, the most frequent symptoms of an intense climate crisis around the world.
Amidst the chaos, we have also seen a wave of solidarity, with people mobilizing, online and offline, to help the victims and mitigate losses. People like you and me, without active power within large government or multinational institutions, but who feel shaken and unhappy with this situation.
A climate crisis requires an aggressive, rapid and urgent response. And the climate solidarity in this episode is an example of this agility, as strong as the strength of the waters, with Brazilians from all over the world coming together to offer support and assistance to affected communities. Perhaps, we are also living in a historic moment of demonstrating the strength of civil power, acting on a scale rarely seen by us
This movement, however, tends to cool down as the days go by. And it is possible that, before long, many people will no longer remember this tragedy – just as they may not even remember the Amazon drought in 2023 or the dam collapse in Marianain 2015. Once again, it will be the already vulnerable communities that will feel these consequences more severely, showing how the environmental racism it is intrinsically linked to inequality and the climate crisis.
When attention on social media ceases, dissipating the emphasis given by algorithms, we may be surprised by other tragedies. And then ‘one-off’ climate solidarity will no longer be enough. The same mobilization that is now coming together to donate and support the victims of Rio Grande do Sul, will have to come together to demand from those truly responsible — governments and large corporations — effective climate recovery, mitigation and adaptation policies, in addition to a transition energy.
We need collective awareness, which realizes that these tragedies are not accidents, but the result of a dynamic; and that we cannot get used to the causes and effects of this type of episode. There is a system causing all of this: it is the current model of industrial production, hyperconsumption, wild extractivism and hyperdisposal which, based on a non-natural, unsustainable flow, have caused this chaos.
This tragic event needs to serve as a visceral warning, an urgent call to global awareness, pushing us to act, collaboratively, today, tomorrow and every day to transform this reality. There is no respite: we have an ongoing climate emergency. And constant collective mobilization is fundamental to ensuring socio-environmental justice and human and natural rights.
