GLOBAL ECONOMY

Today, the economy governs with supremacy as the "master

discipline", with all the other subjects and values subordinated to it.
Critically, ecology has become regarded as a sub-system of the
economy rather than vice versa. Consequently, the "environment" has
become fundamentally seen as a resource bank to carry out the
economic activities of the human being.

This is far removed from the etymological root of the word "economy",
derived from the Greek "Oikos", which literally means "home
administration". Instead of managing our global home responsibly, we
have created economic systems in which it is more beneficial to cut
trees than to grow forests, to displace communities to nurture them.

The advent of the time of fossil fuels, over the last couple of centuries,
has placed at our disposal unprecedented amounts of energy that
humanity has used to meet its needs: we have probably spent more
energy During the twentieth century that in all the previous history of
mankind

This has allowed a prodigious leap in economic production, as well as

important and beneficial advances in areas such as food, medical and
dental care and greater comfort for many within the global family.

But these achievements have had a huge cost. The human population
has multiplied by more than ten since the beginning of the industrial
era in the mid-eighteenth century to more than 6.5 billion today. We are
currently depleting natural capital, thus undermining the ability of
natural systems to regenerate itself. All of this is clearly evident in the
inability of the atmosphere to absorb the level of greenhouse gas
emissions

But also in the loss of fertile soil, the depletion of aquifers, the loss of
biodiversity and many other indicators

At the same time, the concentrations of power and wealth are leading
us towards unprecedented economic inequalities; and communities
writhe under pressure from the economic system geared towards
consumerism and the global concentration of wealth and power

Moreover, the different social and economic systems that we have

built, guaranteeing the continuity of cheap energy, are highly
vulnerable as we approach the average point in the availability of fossil
fuels (commonly Known as the peak of oil).