On the night of April 28, the terraces of Barcelona’s Badal Rambla were crowded; unrefrigerated beers were served, but people seemed happy. “If the end of the world has to come, let it catch us with joy,” a neighbor told me. For more than ten hours the electricity had gone, and the streets were filled with darkness, while the houses were filled with unusual silence, as they continued without television, mobile phones and video consoles. This exceptional situation was very different from what we experienced during the pandemic. The protagonism was not taken by Pedro Sánchez from the small screen, nor by the traditional military; the management of the crisis had anonymous protagonists: batteries to share, candles or any neighbor who had food. In the early morning the electric flow returned, the lights of the shop windows with the shutter lowered were turned on, and we returned to the routine of normality after a test of collapse.

The next day, on the website of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, we found that the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere had reached 430.63 ppm that day at the Mauna Loa Volcano Observatory in Hawaii. This data probably won't tell you anything to most of them, but it was taken with concern in the scientific community. The 2015 Paris Agreements stipulated that by 2025 greenhouse gas emissions should start to fall so that global warming did not exceed the dangerous 1.5 degrees limit, but the ppm concentration detected on April 28 predicted the exact opposite. According to estimates by the International Energy Agency, the result of 2024 has been another blow, with growth compared to the previous year. Due to the increase in the use of coal in India or the aviation industry, the global upward trend has not been able to be reversed, neither by the great efforts made in Europe and China to implement wind and photovoltaic energy, nor by the deindustrialization of the old continent.

Those who accumulate privileges because of rampant capitalism do not want to put a brake on the infinite economic growth of the finite planet. We have entered a vicious race to accumulate the mineral and energy resources necessary to achieve planetary hegemony by the time of the downturn. This is exactly what Donald Trump’s imperial intentions refer to when he talks about the annexation of Canada or Greenland. But even when they are in the White House with climate denialism, they think of Plan B – not for all humanity, but for the caste of the elect. As the planet’s tropical areas heat up for decades, forced migrations will move to more northern latitudes in search of more breathable air and a regular rainfall regime. On a smaller scale, large families of Catalan oligarchies are buying flats and country houses in the Basque Country, denying climate change and leading fossil extraction companies, but ensuring their retirement in the freshness of the Cantabrian Sea.

In the face of so much injustice, the generation of young people has raised their voices. On May 3, 3,000 people gathered in Mont-roig del Camp (Tarragona) to make a loud cry against the installation of the macro-plant of electric batteries of Korean origin. In the face of the impasse, electric cars might seem like a solution, but in the actions and conferences promoted by the new Revoltes de la Terra movement, it was clear that there is no other solution than degrowth. The green transition, led by those who want to continue sucking the blood of the planet, will, at best, only delay the abyss for a few years. This generation of young people, who could be the last, has no intention of accepting that we condemn them to have no future. It is our duty to give them full protection.