Sex, Chile and Climate Change

In a recent New York Times opinion piece Chilean writer Antonio Skármeta goes on about the effects of global warming on Chile, but I think he's really talking about sex.

More specifically, he's complaining about condom use. Tell me that the subtext doesn't just scream 'kavetch':

Here in Santiago, a few thousand miles from Antarctica, boiling hot temperatures have heralded the start of summer. This is, in general, a happy time of year, but it certainly feels eons away from my adolescent years when we sang along to “Here Comes the Sun” and warmed our souls with the hippie energy of “Let the Sunshine In.” Nowadays in Chile, the first thing people think of when they hear the word “sun” is “sun block.” We are advised to go to the beach only in late afternoon.

It doesn't matter, dude. You gotta use a condom every. Single. Time.

Okay, I'll humor you. So your piece is about "Global Warming". And you write:

...for an environmentalist the sight of those breaking glaciers is as distressing as the collapse of Notre Dame would seem to a Parisian.

Well yeah, and also some Chilean dude the other day was trying to tell me that Chile's southerly glaciers are some kind of premium attraction because they may be gone before our lifetime.

Hold on a sec, buddy. How does that make them any less premium than they were 500 years ago? If I saw them 500 years ago, I would have seen them then died, eventually. How is that different from now? And no I'm not being selfish, disregarding future generations. Hell, most of them, like most of us now, wouldn't ever have gotten a chance to see the glaciers anyway.

So, thinking critically, there's no mysticism or spiritual appeal to that Bargain Barn "last-chance" pitch. You're the one talking about the glaciers like they were a consumable tourist attraction, they could be cheap iPods for sale at clearance prices for all I care.

But Skármeta isn't trying to do that. Unfortunately, it's hard to tell exactly what he's trying to do with this global warming op-ed. I hate to say it but it honestly doesn't seem like much - apart from business-as-usual self-promo, with a healthy serving of Chilean hypocrisy:

If tiny Chile does not persuade the giants of this planet to control their talent for destruction, in a few decades’ time the literary allusion that might best reflect our land will no longer be the “joyous likeness of Eden” of our national anthem but rather “paradise lost.”

So if any of us big, bad first world ogres could come to Chile and see how many fucking plastic bags are showered upon grocery store customers, and then look for a place to recycle - no, that would just be nitpicking. Let's talk about pollution in Santiago, or uncontrolled emissions from copper mines supplying China, a big, bad wolf with a "talent for destruction", but pobre Chile is just a casita, come give us wampum we love you long time.

I don't know Antonio Skármeta's work and I'm sure he's a fine author. It could as much be New York Times' fault here too: the Yankee press sure has a sick tendency to fetishize its Latin Clowns with their flowery, sentimental prose. Give a few glass marbles to the sweet Mapuche who does a little dance then spears you in the small of your back with that last paragraph, again,

If tiny Chile does not persuade the giants of this planet to control their talent for destruction

Jesus Christ! If Chile, with its fantastic environmental record, were the size of France the world would have melted by now.

Furthermore, it's not just the handpicked Latin Clowns that the Times seems to be fetishizing, but rather Literature in general. I mean why does a literary op-ed about global warming have to resonate like such an ineffectual whimper? Why not write about Chile's historic role as a pilot country, in democratic Marxism, in neoliberalism - and hey, so the piece might go, let's try it out with environmentalism. But the piece could be infused with the excitement and tension of an uncertain outcome - after all, Chile's success rate as a trend setter is only 50% (Pinochet succeeded, Allende failed). We could then cull some biblical allusion and sincerely pose the question:

Why can't Chile adapt sound environmental policies and become a model for the world.

Or will the neoliberals stage another coup?

Something like that. It would be a responsible piece that posits real solutions by alluding to Chile's historical significance as a global trend -setter and not-trend-setter. It could even be literary.

But no. Skármeta just slips into his clown outfit, paints a big red line of lipstick around his mouth, then he frowns. He slaps together some textbook biblical allusions and at the end of the day does absolutely nothing productive. He whimpers, he whines. He casts Chile, and himself, as a spiteful, hypocritical victim.

Being "literary" doesn't mean being disingenuous.

Yet Skármeta is disingenuousness personified. Here's why. But first let me set it up. So NPR recently reported on an overemphasis on global warming, drowning out other serious concerns about the environment. Well, many environmentalists welcome it anyway - at least people are paying attention to the cause, in general. Despite the fact that global warming isn't the only environmental cause that deserves our serious attention. Nevertheless, these responsible environmentalists are taking lemons, and making lemonade.

Skarmeta, on the other hand (and in typical Chilean fashion) is taking a whole fucking mile, when only given an inch. He's damn happy at the disproportionate attention placed on climate change, Skarmeta quickly reminds us that "Chile’s contribution to the scourge of global warming is relatively low, at just 0.2 percent, yet we will pay a big price".

Chile makes but a small contribution to global warming. Therefore, Chile is a Beacon of Environmentalism. Yet despite the lotus flowers that bloom forth from the footsteps of every Chilean in this Eden-like playground, the forces of Evil are closing in, Paradise will be lost.

Poor fucking Chile. This pristine, untouched wilderness of clean air and blue skies and baby butts your Scandinavian orphans could eat off of - bullocks. Chile is a wretched, stinking, third world hellhole with a heinous environmental record, and a third of Chile's population lives in one of Latin America's most polluted cities. Most winter days in Santiago you can't even see the fucking Andes.

Fuck you, Skarmeta. You don't care about Chile. You would rather point your finger elsewhere, and distract attention from your own dirty, stinking asshole - while most of your own countrymen suffer.

Why don't you talk about Chile's long-overdue need to reduce emissions, curb its disturbing trend of urban pollution (not just Santiago anymore!), start recycling, stop poisoning rivers, stop the massive damn project of Baker River in Aysen, stop Pascua Lama - I mean, talk about a talent for destruction!

And if you're really serious about making a stand against those with a talent for destruction then why doesn't Chile stop supplying them with copper. Chile won't. And so you have to take credit for that "talent for destruction". Because running a copper mine, as we all know, would be part of anyone's grand plan to destroy the earth.

What? You don't know about all that scientific stuff you're just a fruity little writer from a pobre little country? Well guess what I don't buy that crap for a second. Chilean economist Marcel Claude fuses literature, economics and environmentalism and his work is some of the clearest, most indicting critique of Chile's talent for destruction you can find. His problem is that he doesn't do that little Mapuche dance for folks in the Big City.