In a scathing rebuke to the elite capitalists and politicians who largely control the global economic and energy systems, Mexico’s newly-appointed environment secretary on Wednesday pointed a stern finger at the “parasitic and predatory neoliberals” for being the key culprits behind the planetary climate crisis.
“We can defend life, or we can continue destroying it in the name of the market, technology, progress, development, [and] economic growth.”
—Mexico Environment Secretary Víctor Manuel Toledo Manzur
As the Mexico News Daily reports, the public comments by Secretary Víctor Manuel Toledo Manzur were his first since his appointment by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador earlier this week and seen as a direct challenge to previous Mexican governments which sacrificed the nation’s environment to the interests of industry.
“Human beings are not responsible for global warming, as a superficial environmentalism and uncritical science would like to tell us,” said Toledo. “The responsible are a parasitic and predatory minority, and that minority has a name: neoliberalism.”
According to the News Daily, Toledo vowed “to ‘take back’ the Environment and Natural Resources Secretariat (Semarnat), which he said had been controlled by ‘merchants from the automotive sector,’ and involve citizens in policy making.
He also vowed to put ecological and human concerns above the demands of capitalism and industrial powerbrokers.
“We can defend life, or we can continue destroying it in the name of the market, technology, progress, development, economic growth, etc.,” he said.
Watch the full speech (in Spanish):
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