El hantavirus sale a hacer turismo

Se viene anunciado desde hace tiempo por parte de las autoridades sanitarias internacionales, que el continuo trasiego de personas por todo el mundo incrementa exponencialmente las probabilidades de que un brote vírico localizado acabe transformándose en una pandemia. El reciente caso del crucero holandés así lo ha puesto de manifiesto. No hay más que ver la diversidad de nacionalidades (¡23!) que ocupaban los camarotes de esta nave, que partía de la Patagonia argentina para realizar miles de kilómetros de travesía visitando santuarios naturales protegidos, haciendo creer a los adinerados viajeros que participaban en una misión científica repleta de aventuras. 

De no poner límites, o cuanto menos, dejar de soplar el fuelle que alimenta el fuego de estos masivos tránsitos turísticos, todo parece indicar que lo que hace siete años constituyó  una situación excepcional, cuasi inédita en la historia de la humanidad --el Covid-19, que emerge en China en diciembre de ese año, y que aterrizó en forma de pandemia mundial dos meses después llevándose a 14 millones de víctimas--, acabe por resultar una situación más o menos cíclica a la que habrá que hacer frente con trágica frecuencia. 

¿Qué hacer, entonces? 

Las soluciones son muy complejas, al estar implicados aquí derechos, libertades, ocios y negocios. Sin duda, las medidas restrictivas aplicadas en ciudades o países ya muy saturados, pueden ayudar. Desde imponer tasas turísticas a arbitrar normas que restrinjan tanto la llegada de visitantes como la oferta de viviendas turísticas y las plazas hoteleras. Pero, una vez más, considero que aquí la educación tiene mucho que decir. Hacer consciente a quien viaja de las enormes consecuencias medioambientales, sociales, culturales, sanitarias y económicas de su aparentemente inocua decisión de viajar por placer a destinos cada vez más lejanos y cada vez más amenazados, debe ser una prioridad para las autoridades de todos los países. Educar desde la escuela y los medios de comunicación en la idea de que viajar tiene consecuencias funestas. Que no existen las "Cero Emisiones" --un bulo del greenwashing--, pues el mero hecho de estar vivos ya nos covierte en agentes contaminantes. Que viajar no es un imperativo para ser feliz, que viajar destruye y ensucia, que viajar altera los lugares y las costumbres, y que no es la única ni la mejor manera de conocer mundo. Que, tal vez, la mejor forma de asomarse a culturas olvidadas sea leer los ensayos de Margaret Mead o los de Marvin Harris; o que para contemplar la feliz hermosura y la prolija cultura de un grupo de chimpancés, el camino sea abrir los escritos de Jordi Sabater Pi, ilustrados con gracia y precisión; o que las mayores emociones nos aguardan entre las páginas de los clásicos --a nuestro alcance en una biblioteca pública--. Beatus ille: austeridad, paciencia y compasión conforman la única vía segura hacia una pacífica y humana conformidad gozosa, tan ansiada, tan buscada por los vericuetos de lo que puede ser vendido y comprado, que no conducen sino a estados de ansiedad que van retroalimentándose. 

Sobre todo, si en nuestros viajes seguimos como dóciles rebaños las rutas y destinos marcados por los intereses de las grandes empresas turísticas, que solo actúan por mor de la mayor rentabilidad económica, sin considerar los trascedentales bienes y valores --intangibles y necesarios-- puestos aquí en grave riesgo. Entre otros, el de la sanidad pública, cada vez más acosada por la codicia y menos cuidada por los gobiernos. 

¡Cuántas cosas se resolverían si fuéramos capaces de ser dichosos sin necesidad de salir de nuestra propia habitación siquiera! Con una buena compañía humana o animal, literaria o musical, o gozando sencillamente del silencio o de la soledad sonora en la noche sosegada, o de la contemplación del milagroso discurrir de la vida desde el otero de nuestra ventana. 

www.filosofiaylaicismo.blogspot.com

The Fermi Paradox and Self-Devouring Worlds

©A. Casado Capell:
“At the Museo José Guerrero in Granada, Spain.”

Will there be other thinking beings inhabiting some remote corner of our immense and silent galaxy, made up of more than three hundred billion suns and countless planets? I have often wondered this while contemplating in awe the spectacle of the starry night, now so threatened by light pollution. Could the path of my gaze perhaps intersect with that of some other sentient being who, at this very moment, is looking toward this tiny galactic corner of mine?

“Le silence éternel de ces espaces infinis m’effraie!” exclaimed an anguished Pascal, filled with emotion and with those reasons of the heart that reason itself cannot understand... And years later, Immanuel Kant emphasized: “Two things fill my mind with admiration and awe: the starry sky above me and the moral law within me.”

Given the abundance of the basic materials from which life is made—carbon in particular—and the extraordinary age of the universe—almost infinite when compared to the meager history of the hominid family—there must be, or must once have been, many highly advanced technological civilizations in our galaxy. The mathematical law of large numbers shows us that any event, however improbable it may seem, will eventually occur if the number of trials is sufficiently large. Nietzsche hinted at something similar as well—and the Pythagoreans many centuries earlier—in his theory of the Eternal Return of the Same.

And yet, to this day—despite the self-serving efforts of opportunistic pseudoscientists like Iker Jiménez and his circle of acolytes, whose business depends on superstitious ignorance—we have no evidence whatsoever that this is the case. No radio signals or any other kind of communication, no remains of artificial satellites or extraterrestrial spacecraft.

Could it be because our methods of observation are inadequate or imperfect, or perhaps—as Enrico Fermi himself proposed, Nobel Prize winner in Physics in 1938—because every technologically advanced civilization is doomed to self-destruction?

When Fermi formulated his paradox, he himself was witnessing the emergence of a massive new power of self-destruction, previously unknown: nuclear physics applied to the construction of the first atomic bomb. He was immersed in the sinister Manhattan Project. Today there are enough weapons to destroy the entire planet, and those who control them are not people with whom I would share my home. But we have also accumulated other weapons of mass destruction: pollution, extreme inequality, and injustice.

After centuries of being laborious Sisyphuses of the futile, we have now become blind figures of the Apocalypse.

Are we ourselves just another autophagous civilization, already engulfed in its own irreversible process of self-destruction? Or perhaps—might it be Gaia herself who is exterminating us in legitimate self-defense!?

www.filosofiaylaicismo.blogspot.com

Le hantavirus part faire du tourisme

Cela fait longtemps que les autorités sanitaires internationales annoncent que le flux continu de personnes à travers le monde augmente de manière exponentielle les probabilités qu’une épidémie virale localisée finisse par se transformer en pandémie. Le récent cas du paquebot néerlandais en est une preuve manifeste. Il suffit de voir la diversité des nationalités (23 !) qui occupaient les cabines de ce navire, parti de la Patagonie argentine pour parcourir des milliers de kilomètres en visitant des sanctuaires naturels protégés, faisant croire aux voyageurs fortunés qu’ils participaient à une mission scientifique pleine d’aventures.

Si l’on ne met pas de limites, ou du moins si l’on cesse de souffler sur le soufflet qui alimente le feu de ces transits touristiques massifs, tout semble indiquer que ce qui, il y a sept ans, constituait une situation exceptionnelle, quasi inédite dans l’histoire de l’humanité — la pandémie de Covid-19, initiée en Chine en décembre de cette année-là et qui s’est transformée en pandémie mondiale deux mois plus tard, faisant 14 millions de victimes — pourrait finir par devenir une situation plus ou moins cyclique à laquelle il faudra faire face avec une fréquence tragique.

Que faire, alors ?

Les solutions sont très complexes, car elles impliquent ici des droits, des libertés, des loisirs et des affaires. Sans aucun doute, les mesures restrictives appliquées dans des villes ou des pays déjà saturés peuvent aider. Des taxes touristiques aux règles limitant l’arrivée des visiteurs et l’offre de logements touristiques et de places hôtelières. Mais, une fois de plus, je considère que l’éducation a ici un rôle majeur à jouer. Sensibiliser le voyageur aux énormes conséquences environnementales, sociales, culturelles, sanitaires et économiques de sa décision apparemment anodine de voyager pour le plaisir vers des destinations de plus en plus lointaines et menacées doit être une priorité pour les autorités de tous les pays. Éduquer, dès l’école et via les médias, à l’idée que voyager a des conséquences funestes. Qu’il n’existe pas de « Zéro Émission » — un mensonge du greenwashing — car le simple fait d’être vivant nous rend déjà agents polluants. Que voyager n’est pas un impératif pour être heureux, que voyager détruit et pollue, que voyager altère les lieux et les coutumes, et que ce n’est ni la seule ni la meilleure manière de découvrir le monde. Que, peut-être, la meilleure façon de s’ouvrir à des cultures oubliées est de lire les essais de Margaret Mead ou ceux de Marvin Harris ; ou que pour contempler la beauté heureuse et la culture prolifique d’un groupe de chimpanzés, le chemin est d’ouvrir les écrits de Jordi Sabater Pi, illustrés avec grâce et précision ; ou que les plus grandes émotions nous attendent entre les pages des classiques de n’importe quelle culture --à notre portée dans une bibliothèque publique--. Beatus ille : austérité, patience et compassion constituent la seule voie sûre vers une conformité joyeuse, pacifique et humaine, si recherchée, si poursuivie à travers les méandres de ce qui peut être vendu et acheté, et qui ne conduit qu’à des états d’anxiété auto-entretenus.

Surtout si, dans nos voyages, nous continuons à suivre comme des troupeaux dociles les itinéraires et destinations dictés par les intérêts des grandes entreprises touristiques, qui n’agissent que par souci de rentabilité économique, sans considérer les biens et valeurs transcendantaux — intangibles et nécessaires — gravement mis en danger ici. Parmi d'autres valeurs, celle de la santé publique, de plus en plus menacée par la cupidité et de moins en moins protégée par les gouvernements.

Combien de choses pourraient se résoudre si nous étions capables d’être heureux sans même quitter notre propre chambre ! Avec une bonne compagnie humaine ou animale, littéraire ou musicale, ou simplement en savourant le silence ou la contemplation du miracle du déroulement de la vie depuis le promontoire de notre fenêtre.

www.filosofiaylaicismo.blogspot.com

Spain, Terrace of Europe

 

Plaza de La Romanilla (Granada), occupied by bar terraces

“How much water has to fall before we admit that it’s raining?”

That’s how El Niño de las Pinturas addresses us from a wall in Granada’s Realejo district.

So then, let’s see how much water. In the immediate surroundings of Granada Cathedral, four large hotels have opened in the last four years—adding to the many that were already there (and at least two more are planned or under construction); likewise, several buildings devoted exclusively to tourist apartments have been opened. We’re talking about more than a thousand new beds in this small urban area. One Sunday morning, as I passed through Plaza de las Pasiegas by the cathedral, I saw an elderly woman come out of her doorway and, as a large group of tourists went by, she exclaimed bluntly and bitterly, “We’re going to end up eating suitcases!” Now it’s my turn to ask, along with the Niño: how many new fast-food outlets and souvenir shops that displace traditional commerce will open in the wake of these new hotel beds? And how many new bars and restaurants with their corresponding terraces? How many people will stop buying or renting a home in the neighborhood due to rising prices caused by mass purchases by large investors drawn by the scent of real estate profit? They now call the effects of this renewed vandalism gentrification. After the pandemic, we were asked to show solidarity with bars. Fine—but not at any cost. Who shows solidarity with the elderly person whose final years have become a living hell because of the bar opened in the square where they live, or because that same square has turned into a multi-purpose venue for fairs, concerts, rallies, processions, and all kinds of events? Or with the mother who, every day as she leaves home with her baby, must weave her way through several hordes of louts stuffed into ridiculous penis costumes? For a long-suffering resident of our historic centers, the definition of silence is simply less noise.

El Niño mural in
Realejo (Granada)

 No, this cannot be happening. And yet—how it rains! But there are more questions: how many more terraces must be installed in Granada’s Plaza Bib-Rambla to turn it not just into an uninhabitable place for residents, but into something impassable and inhospitable for anyone who enjoys strolling through a beautiful historic setting—stopping to look, to talk, to watch children play, to hear its fountain or smell its linden trees in spring, or simply to read? It is a clear example of the occupation of a space that, by its very nature, is and must remain public. How many days of unbreathable air must citizens of a tourist city endure before their city council reins in the hotels, bars, and tourist apartments that attract a noisy legion of visitors—eager to consume—arriving by plane, bus, and other polluting vehicles? How many families and elderly people must be forced to leave their homes in historic neighborhoods before this new barbarian invasion ceases?

But let’s keep asking questions, with the Niño’s permission. Who is more patriotic: the one who denounces this deranged reality, or the one who takes advantage of it to cash in (whether in money or votes), unconcerned about the destruction of a modus vivendi and an environment that is precisely what attracted that inconsiderate tourism in the first place? The one who defends those non-monetizable values, or the one who surrenders to that liquid reality of money that only cares about immediate profit? Despite its much smaller population, Granada is already the third most polluted city in Spain, after Madrid and Barcelona. As for the coastline—the other major destination—Spain had 48 beaches with black flags this past summer due to waste generated by mass tourism. The Maro-Cerro Gordo natural area in Nerja received that grim distinction due to such an accumulation of sunscreen that it has become dangerous for both human health and marine biodiversity.

El Niño mural in
Realejo (Granada)

 But when we talk about pollution, we don’t just mean water contamination or air pollution, but also noise, spatial, visual, and even emotional pollution: streets with beautiful names like Silence, Solitude, or Study turned into stage sets filled with extras and props. We’re talking about an urban space that is dirty, overcrowded, hostile, monetized to exhaustion, transformed into a giant marketplace, subjected to the hell of sameness and unrecognizability for its inhabitants. And this applies to the cities already mentioned as well as Córdoba, Toledo, Valencia, Pamplona, Palma, Seville, and many others.

Obviously, tourism creates jobs and wealth, but we must reflect and decide what kind of city model we want. And here, everyone’s participation is crucial. Successive crises have clearly shown how vulnerable an economy is when it depends so heavily on tourism, as ours does—unable to diversify sources of employment and wealth, not only material or tangible but also intellectual, moral, and cultural.

Nowadays tourism is called an “industry” to wrap it in that aura of progress we usually attribute to industrious Germans. Whoever names things controls them. And so they try to dazzle those who have suffered unemployment and job insecurity for decades. But no, it is not an industry—least of all this kind of tourism of selfies, compulsive consumption, and theme-park logic. I was taught that tourism belongs to the tertiary sector: services. (“Learn more to serve better” is the motto of a semi-private school in Granada, incidentally.) We also face another serious demographic problem alongside that of rural Spain: historic centers are being emptied to fill them with partying and pollution of all kinds. The goal—perhaps shared by authorities here and in Brussels—is to turn Spain into Europe’s great terrace: a place of fun and bachelor parties for the young, and of health tourism and karaoke for older people from wealthy northern Europe. In the south, everyone a waiter, a guide, a cleaner, or a hospitality worker. Let those in the north think and produce; we’ll provide the entertainment in our exhausted cities and beaches.

But only regulated tourism, along with the promotion of more responsible tourism models, will be compatible with livable urban environments and a clean, protected environment. And these are essential values for a dignified and sustainable life over time. There is an urgent need to rationalize the massive flow of tourism at the municipal, regional, national, and European levels. Above all, it is about education, but also about establishing rules that have already been applied in various countries—for example, limiting the number of hotel beds based on population; or introducing a tourist tax so visitors contribute to the upkeep of the places they visit and the services they receive; or limiting by area the number of leisure and hospitality venues and terraces, as well as setting hours and noise thresholds that respect residents’ well-being—without forcing them to go to court just to have basic rights like rest recognized.

Sustainability, our health, the future of our young people, of our countryside and our cities, are largely at stake in this murky business of tourism. So yes—it is raining, and not exactly water.

www.filosofiaylaicismo.blogspot.com

Infrahistory

Río Chico in the Alpujarra
(Sierra Nevada–Granada–Spain)

  Miguel de Unamuno spoke of intrahistory, the subterranean current of the “eternal tradition”. We are going to refer to that hidden course with the term infrahistory, with the old philosopher’s permission: the histories of every town and village, of every family, of every person, or even of every living being; for, humble as it may be, each existence unfolds in circumstances that can be narrated.

Every vital experience has its effects on other lives, near or far, and also on its surroundings, like the famous flutter of the fragile, hidden butterfly’s wings. These are lives whose temporal course runs concealed beneath the stage machinery of the macro-events of heroes and characters, which are always recounted, embellished, or falsified by the victors.

Today I walk along a narrow path that connects Cáñar with Soportújar, in the Alpujarras of Granada (Spain), traversing an Eden of distant horizons and rugged hills, virgin springs and aged irrigation channels. A harmonious blending of the efforts of successive generations, taming the natural environment with respect: their unpaved paths, their small clay-tiled houses facing south, their simple terraced gardens, and the centuries-old chestnut trees—“they are the only cathedrals I admire,” a Nietzschean shepherd from these parts once confessed to me—whose roots sink deep into the steep slopes to prevent erosion and provide leafy shade to the hands that planted them.

Two nightingales hold a prolonged conversation on this cool July morning, with the murmur of the Chico River as a basso continuo. They know no other place, desire no other life or paradise than this one they inhabit during the days of their brief existence, of their unknown infrahistory, which today intersected with mine.

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