At the closing of the meeting “Agreement for Climate Action. Public-private platform for sustainable development”, Sergio Massa decided to define himself as a defender of the environment, confronting Javier Miley that a few days ago defended the privatization of the rivers. The same Minister of Economy and candidate for Peronism, who had said “you have to see the mountains as a cake.”

Cynicism in the electoral campaign and more extractivist consensus

Milei’s statements about the rivers and their privatization – the equivalent of her denialist discourse on the climate crisis – were strongly repudiated by environmentalism and the leftwho, unlike Massa, one of the guarantors of extractivism, have been confronting these policies in the streets and in Congress.

But if Milei can appear saying these barbaric things, it is because there is a extractivist consensus around agribusiness, fracking and polluting mining as “necessary” activities for “development”.

“There are many more of us in Argentina who believe that rivers, lakes, the lungs and the heart are priceless. We have to state clearly that we neither sell rivers, nor sell lakes, nor sell organs. We are a society that believes in life, development and coexistence”, said Sergio Massa.

However, this is contradicted by reality. Just to cite a few examples: Joseph Lewis appropriated the hidden lake in the south, with an extension of around 12,000 hectares, in an illegal occupation of land protected by the State to this day, while the original communities such as the Mapuches are persecuted and criminalized as usurpers, when they are the true owners by right of pre-existence of those lands.

On the other hand, the large mining companies that extract lithium they have to pay a royalty for the water they use, something that often does not happen, but in fact is a commodification of the water from the high Andean salt flats, which are found in arid regions with water stress. Are we seriously not selling the rivers and lagoons? Massa is not unaware of this situation, on the contrary, he is a partner of Gerardo Morales who promotes the looting of lithium in Jujuy at the expense of water and encroaching on the territories of the original communities.

Milei’s sayings are scandalous but it is not necessary to resort to the imagination to see what would happen if her ideas were applied. just by seeing the creekamong others wetlandsit is clear that in the hands of private profit, our rivers are contaminated, looted and it is never a priority to reverse these consequences. For this reason, the Wetlands Law was nothing more than another Peronist campaign promise and continues to be pushed aside by the lobby of the big mining companies, among others.

Hand in hand with extractivism to pay the debt there is no defense of the environment. The only consistent defense and true opposition to Milei’s reactionary ideas and the extractivist consensus that Massa and Bullrich also share is the Left Front candidate, Myriam Bregman.



Source: www.laizquierdadiario.com



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