The Concept of Living Well
In April 2010 a Peoples’ Conference on Climate Change was held in Cochabamba, Bolivia. A Final Declaration was adopted on April 22. There were interesting discussions with activists from indigenous movements, for instance on the concept of “living well“. “We suffer the severe effects of climate change, of the energy, food and financial crises. This is not the product of human beings in general, but of the existing inhuman capitalist system, with its unlimited industrial development. It is brought about by minority groups who control world power, concentrating wealth and power on themselves alone. Concentrating capital in only a few hands is no solution for humanity, neither for life itself, because as a consequence many lives are lost in floods, by intervention or by wars, so many lives through hunger, poverty and usually curable diseases.”