The dictatorship of the "Macro

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The controversy of macro-farms The fact that the "micro" - in Spain, at last, a debate has been opened about the aberration that they are - is teaching us something. We must flee as far as possible from everything macro. Wind and photovoltaic macroparks are also giving rise to a necessary debate. Or the odious business and "informative" macro-structures -how short are the simple quotation marks in this case to emphasize the necessary sarcasm and repulsion towards the organizations that are making our lives impossible.

Everything macro tends towards concentration of power and inequality. Everything macro tends to verticality and lack of sensitivity to detail, and yet not everything macro is bad per se. It is not a question of making an amendment to the totality. The world, fortunately, is much richer and more complex than that.

There are many examples where macro can be right. A campaign such as the one promoted internationally by the Stop Ecocide movement seeks to consolidate a sort of macro-crime very necessary. Make it a crime everywhere to commit a crime against life and nature - so that spills like the recent Repsol spill in Peru would not go unpunished. Or, for example, it would also be great to have a macro-right in which every human being has the same rights for the simple fact of having been born. A hybrid between the Universal Basic Income and Guaranteed Work could serve to make a world, which is fraying due to the absurd, obscene and growing inequality between classes, more just and equitable.

It is possible that any human being has the right not to be "semi-slavery".semi-slavery for life because of a system that, in its apparent relentless pursuit of "progress" -another quotation marks similar to those of before- is condemning all of us, even those who have been condemned for life. is condemning us all, even those of us who have barely benefited from its passing and - however much its defenders insist - ephemeral and unsustainable madness.

We need to return to the beauty of the micro. Without despising what we have achieved, even valuing it, improving it. We can - and must - plan globally how to get out of the labyrinth in which we have caged ourselves. Because there is no other way to do it than with a plan that is as global as possible. Neither climate change nor the economic inequality caused by tax havens understand borders -understand this: of course there are differences between living in one country or another, but we are all already immersed in the climate lottery and there is no solution to inequality that is not global.

But we will only do so if we have one foot in the local at the same time. One foot in extensive livestock models, respectful of the environment and useful for the fertilization of the countryside, and another in the consumption of vegetables and fruits as the main basis of our diet. A diet that also has to be, by thermodynamic necessity, increasingly closer, of kilometer 0 if possible.

Also one foot is unavoidable in the models of distributed energy transition, promoting self-consumption and non-electric renewables, and another in the macro parks when it is inevitable, where it is essential to put them. But please, this must be done with a mentality that is not the dominant economicist one, that of short-term profit, that of "here, on this rural land, which is cheaper", because that mentality is the one that has led us to disaster.

We are living in times in which the macro is beginning to be questioned. Globalization, which not so long ago seemed to be an irreversible process, is cracking at a fast pace, to the rhythm of failures in the supply chain, and to the rhythm of the rise of nationalist populisms. What nonsense, what an oxymoron this "nationalist populism" is. Any recipe overly rooted in the roots will not be able to deal with problems that affect us all equally. And yet, globalization provides us with a magnificent example of the dilemma of micro vs. macroAlthough it is desirable to return to recipes that are more local, less monolithic, more rooted in the territory -which makes it possible to build with better knowledge of the local reality-, it is undeniable that there are some things that are not so bad about globalization.

We have to be able to preserve the good things that this process of finding each other has bequeathed us, so that when we are not so close -because of the inevitable fall of the available energy in the short term- we will be able to understand each other. There are cultural colonialisms that have not been negative, in fact, some, I wish they would spread, such as eliminating forced marriages, child slavery, and so on.

And above all, we cannot fall back into nationalist recipes because wars and conflicts must be avoided at all costs. If the destiny is common, in a world surrounded by global problems, to continue fighting among nations or blocs is a waste of time and energy that we no longer have to waste.

All this is explained very well by the philosopher Bruno Latour in his magnificent and brief work "Where to land". To be local, terrestrial, he says, but not so much that we remain anchored to traditionalisms. To be global, modern, but not so much as to believe that globalization will be eternal, technology will always be our ally and Elon Musk the third reincarnation of Jesus Christ. He is not the antichrist either, but looking at some of his proposals -terraforming Mars with nuclear bombs, legitimizing coups in Bolivia to seize lithium, not respecting basic tax laws when the system is very weak with the ultrarich-, it is evident that he is much closer to being a villain than a hero.

And that is why the time has come for us to assume that in order to meet the challenges ahead of us as humanity, to educate the mentality of the species that we have in diapers, we need to put in line, to put limits, to the power of the macro and its representatives on Earth. If we want to take care of the Earth and all the small creatures that inhabit it, we have to forget the dreams of grandeur and return to appreciate the small detail. In the micro is the true beauty in the world.