Portal de Cartagena
www.portaldecartagena.com
In this three-thousand-year-old city, surrounded by mountains, of extinct mines and fields that used to be rain-fed, we and the cartageneras2E live, or we live poorly, depending on which side of the coin we have touched, something more than two hundred thousand people , in a polluted environment tainted by smoke for decades, an environment that makes us sick but at the same time gives "life" to many families that depend on that smoke to survive.
It is the false dilemma: Pollution or unemployment?
And most of the time we choose smoke.
Although sooner or later come unemployment, or misery, or short life, or all together.
We Cartagena are slaves of what has been called "short-termism": I now have to live, and if I die for breathing contaminated air will be in a few years, and if resources are depleted or degraded, it will be a few years, and if I leave a dunghill for future generations, it will be in a few years ... Everything will be "in a few years."
The problem is that those years have already arrived.
The future has arrived.
Then what?
Our economic model, our municipal and regional governments, our agriculture, our tourism, a good part of our society, our urban model, our values ​​... everything is based on short-termism.
And if a few decades ago we still did not know what this word meant now we are living it in our own flesh: short-termism is Mar Menor that dies and scientists leave the ship because it does not lead anywhere;
Short-term cancer rates are the highest rates of industrial emissions;
it is the real estate bubble, the speculation and the end of our natural landscapes;
short-termism are companies that prey and run away leaving contaminated lands;
cortoplacismo are mountains and wadis as improvised landfills;
Calblanque and the coast constantly threatened by tourism for the rich;
Short-termism is that Cartagena has the highest levels of the country in tropospheric ozone, that there are still schools with asbestos, that they continue to be fumigated with glyphosate, that they continue to open up more cracks in the land for intensive agriculture that is totally unsustainable.
Short-sightedness is bread for today and hunger for tomorrow.
Money for today, stop for tomorrow.
Sea for today, desert for tomorrow.
I work for today, abandoned towns for tomorrow.
Mining for today, illness for tomorrow.
In PODEMOS we want the opposite of short-termism.
And since we have arrived at the City Council we have not stopped fighting so that the rest of the Corporation understands it, and that the Government takes it to the practice.
We believe that the defense of Human Rights and the improvement of the environment are inseparable: we do not understand that the quality of life of people is independent of their natural environment.
One thing and the other go together, united towards the future with long-term policies.
Therefore, in addition to constantly denouncing the deterioration of our natural spaces, we have proposed plans and ordinances, the air quality table and the increase of personnel in the environment, awareness campaigns, sustainable mobility plans and public transport and many actions that endure in time, to break with the "short-termism" of the irresponsible governments and accomplices who have preceded us.
Defending the environment is not and should not be the exclusive task of environmental groups.
It is a civic obligation.
The situation of the Mar Menor, the mountain range, the Aljorra and Alumbres, or the same problems with which the arrival of the AVE to Cartagena, among other things, has made it abundantly clear that it is the neighbors who must put themselves at the forefront of the defense of its environment: it is its quality of life that is at stake, its interests, and also that of future generations.
Much remains to be done if the Cartagena and Cartagena we take seriously this solidarity with the next generations.
That is not about being short-term.
In Cartagena lack of education and environmental awareness, we must understand that you can not do anything for wealth, that money does not justify everything ... That is why one of the first things we would do when arriving to the Government would be to promote training and awareness of neighbors and neighbors;
and help to understand that without the conservation of our environment we can not survive.
We would have to start from the beginning, with things as simple as not throwing garbage in the streets, or take care of our biodiversity and natural spaces.
It is terrible to climb a Sunday to the viewpoint of Roldán and see all the garbage that is one along the way.
This shows us the lack of sensitivity and training that we have, training that has to start at school and in the family.
Therefore investing in environmental education would be one of our priority objectives.
Citizens must become agents of change for the conservation and respect of the environment, so that "short-termism" is only a thing of the past.
Another thing that is urgent is a Department of the Environment, to apply a transversal policy in all municipal areas.
Like the policy of Equality or Social Services, the environment can not be relegated to a sector of the population, and Cartagena urgently needs to ensure the comprehensive protection of our natural spaces, ensuring the health of its inhabitants, to breathe a clean air ...
Another need is the creation of a Municipal Council of Environment where all the social agents are represented: a space of control of the Government, to formulate proposals, to share information, etc.
Training, specialization and participation would be the keys of our environmental policy, without these three objectives we will hardly get a sustainable municipality so that people enjoy a prosperous and secure future2E
And of course, among the main challenges of today is to resolve the issues for which we have already worked during this term: recovering the Mar Menor, clearing the municipality of debris, controlling the pollution sources and applying corrective measures to protect the health of the people, to protect in an integral way our natural spaces, to preserve from the wild urbanism the rural nuclei and the natural surroundings like the Mar Menor, Calblanque and the West zone of the Municipality, to rehabilitate the contaminated lands mainly of the Sierra Minera and El Hondón, to apply a real Municipal Mobility Plan encouraging the use of bicycles and pedestrian areas, taking care of our mountains repopulating them with native flora, preserving our gardens of poison like glyphosate, clean our beaches in a respectful way so as not to degrade them ...
This year 2018, the World Environment Day is organized around a pressing theme, "No Pollution by plastic".
How many plastic bags do we see through the city, along the beaches, through the mountains and rural roads in our municipality?
Thousands.
How many end up polluting our sea and killing our wildlife?
Thousands.
The closest example we have in Cartagena occurred last February, when a dead sperm whale appeared on a beach in Cabo Palos.
It was a male specimen, young.
In the examination they did, it was found that in their digestive tract they had deposited 29 kilos of marine garbage, such as garbage bags, raffia sacks, ropes, pieces of nets, and even a drum.
This terrible news has to make us reflect on our behavior with nature and the consequences of our actions, of what we do and what we do not do.
There is no time left for the Earth, or we act from the local environment to raise awareness and change the destructive behavior of people, or our sons and daughters, grandchildren and grandchildren, will suffer the consequences of our irresponsibility.
Pilar Marcos
Cartagena municipal group spokesman Yes Can We - WE CAN
Source: CTSSP
Privacy policy
- Legal notice
- Cookies