An environmental expert and director, Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF) Nnimmo Bassey, has lamented the risk of extractivism which he said is currently destroying Nigeria food system and increasing the impact climate change.
Speaking at the School of Ecology session recently Bassey said, extractivism is propelled by a complex of mentalities and power differentials that are basically self-reinforcing in practice, underwriting and rationalizing socio-ecologically destructive modes of organising life through depletion, and non-reciprocity.
According to him, the propensity to extract, consume, exploit and trash has triggered multiple crises including climate change and the smoldering food crisis adding that human induced climate chaos is responsible for droughts, floods, sea level rise, coastal erosion, desertification, marked temperature rise and others.
“Consequent upon these forces, the earth, as we know it, is at great risk and rapidly becoming unsuitable for human habitation. These stressors have triggered famines, forced migration and conflicts. The challenge is that there are no signs that humans are ready to take the path of rectitude regarding the exploitation of Nature or to transition to more benign modes of production and consumption.
“Platitudes have remained the order of the day, at national, regional, and markedly at multilateral conversations on the issues. This scenario continues to play out because the key discussants have a sneaky belief that whatever catastrophe may be looming will not manifest in their own lifetime. Humans may never have been more selfish and narcissistic since the first human rose from the dust,” he lamented.
While biodiversity loss, genetic engineering, geoengineering, building up, he pointed out that intergenerational crises would not only negatively impact the environment but may probably upend human nature, and the survival of other beings.
“We need to school ourselves on the ecological costs of extractivism. Such schools of ecology should provide us with the scaffolds for the construction of just socio-economic relations as humans, communities and nations interact with each other and with Mother Earth. They would be spaces to remind us that there are many individuals, groups and communities who are already taking steps to ensure a liveable future. We must enact these schools in our streets, village squares and town halls so as to learn together, build together and forge ways forward in solidarity,” he claimed.
