Because we are accustomed to green madness, we often overlook simple environmental issues.
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The only progressive cause that enjoys the spontaneous support of ordinary people is ecology. This is only possible because the concept of ecology varies widely: common sense immediately thinks of things like not dumping sewage into rivers or avoiding wanton deforestation, yet for Germans bureaucrats, it can also mean shutting down nuclear power plants and using old-growth forests to produce charcoal.
Because we are accustomed to green madness, we often overlook simple environmental issues – issues that could actually be used against the very big capitalists who pose as philanthropists. Big Tech offers perhaps the best example: any informed person knows that the components used in desktops, laptops, and smartphones are non-renewable and rely on mining operations that often blur the line into humanitarian crises. According to Vatican News, a single Congolese mine “supplies between 15% and 30% of the world’s coltan – extracted entirely by hand by locals earning mere pennies a day,” all while exposed to constant risk of accidents. In March of this year alone, over 200 people died in a landslide; about 70 of the victims were children. Or, at least, those are the figures reported to the world by Reuters.
Located in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Rubaya mine is controlled by a Rwandan Tutsi paramilitary group accused by the UN of maintaining ties to the Rwandan government and committing grave human rights violations. We are well aware of the outcry raised by international media-savvy organizations when Brazilian gold prospectors exploit Brazilian lands; yet, for some reason, the forests and human lives of the Congo do not command as much global attention as the Brazilian Amazon.
Coltan is used in mobile phones and computers worldwide. If global elites truly cared about human life, they would be committed to ending the exploitation of the Congolese people. A simple way to achieve this would be by reducing the demand for these materials – a move linked to the primary cause championed by global elites: environmentalism. Even if these elites are psychopaths who care nothing for the Congolese people, an environmentalist perspective would favor a world with less discarded ore and plastic, and fewer computers and cell phones ending up in the trash. Nevertheless, it would cause an uproar if mainstream media voices loudly declared that Apple and Amazon must be compelled to allow customers to use their cell phones, computers, and Kindles for more than ten years. Another absurdity involves Bill Gates: although he does not sell hardware, he produces an operating system so shoddy that it slows computers down within a few years, forcing people to buy new devices. Laptops should return to having detachable parts so that components can be replaced, just as they used to be. Genuine concern for the environment runs counter to Big Tech practices – even before the issue of the energy demands of AI data centers appeared.
An issue like this is tied to the shaping of our appetites, our tastes, and public morality. After all, people do not line up outside Apple stores on iPhone launch days because they actually need a new device. That is where the environmental damage begins: in the unbridled appetite for gadgets that serve as status symbols. Thus, we can say that the environmental crisis is, to a large extent, a moral crisis – a crisis of values. If public morality frowned upon this type of behavior, we would be in a strong position to demand that tech giants allow people to keep using older devices. Just a few decades ago, consumerism was recognized as a problem. Somehow, however, the craving for “modernity” has led to a situation where anything deemed modern is now considered acceptable.
This same mindset tends to create urban planning and energy-related problems in tropical countries. On his YouTube channel, architect Filipe Boni clearly explains why Brazil has built so many homes lacking thermal comfort, even when money is not a problem: housing has come to be built based on exchange value rather than use value. In other words, creating a project that impresses clients is valued more highly than creating one that is comfortable. Since the time of Le Corbusier, the ideal of a chic home has been a glass-filled cube – and one can imagine what a brilliant idea it is to live in a glass cube under a 36°C sunny sky. Naturally, air conditioning is required to make it habitable, but worrying about the electricity bill is considered unchic, something only poor people do. The modern thing to do is to seal up a glass-filled house under the hot sun and turn on the AC. The architecture developed in Brazil over the course of 500 years, which borrows heavily from Arab architecture, is not considered modern, and therefore, not considered good.
If an individual wants to pay the price for their own foolishness, that is the lesser of two evils; yet, when that foolishness is contagious, the resulting energy demand forces everyone to pay higher bills. Even worse is the issue of large mirrored buildings – structures that look very modern and beautiful in Nordic countries. However, in a tropical city, a mirrored tall building blinds drivers by reflecting sunlight and becomes a nuisance to the neighborhood, which receives direct sunlight at one time of day and the sun’s reflection at another. This is precisely the situation created in Salvador by a project designed by Siegbert Zanettini, a full professor of architecture at the prestigious University of São Paulo. An article in the Correio newspaper regarding the damage caused by this “second sun” notes the architect’s claim that he employs “architecture that is flexible and attuned to its specific location, addressing all technical and environmental requirements with sensitivity.” As if the neighbors and drivers weren’t enough, the building also causes problems for native birds.
Isn’t environmentalism in vogue among Brazilian elites? It certainly is. But this is resolved through carbon credits, a financial scheme that relies, rhetorically, on campaigns regarding the Amazon Forest’s HDI. And while Brazil’s green elites view air conditioning as a prerequisite for chicness, Europe’s ultra-green, psychopathic elites prefer to let the most vulnerable die in heatwaves rather than turn on the AC.
The European anti-air-conditioning craze goes unreported by the Brazilian press; and, since that western press limits itself to echoing Reuters on international matters, we can assume the mainstream international news cycle doesn’t cover the topic either. We find out about it either through Twitter, the social network where Western political tensions play out, or via Russian media, which isn’t banned in the Americas. By Rachel Marsden’s article “Air conditioning is the EU’s freedom test“, and by the piece “Von der Leyen’s office accused of ‘feudalism’ over air conditioning“, both for RT, we learn that European elites are waging a green crusade against air conditioning, even as the elderly die during heatwaves across Europe, and even as Ursula Von der Leyen herself uses AC in her office while leaving subordinates without it when outdoor temperatures hit 34°C.
Since Leo XIV’s encyclical Magnifica Humanitas is currently in the spotlight, it is worth pointing to Francis’s Laudato Si’. Although it didn’t generate the same buzz as the AI encyclical, it has the great virtue of addressing ecology while also incorporating the topics of urban planning, consumerism, and the inadequacy of market-based solutions for environmental problems. It was good to publish in 2015, while the carbon market was taking shape, a document containing the following question: “Once more, we need to reject a magical conception of the market, which would suggest that problems can be solved simply by an increase in the profits of companies or individuals. Is it realistic to hope that those who are obsessed with maximizing profits will stop to reflect on the environmental damage which they will leave behind for future generations?” (§190)
