The Climate Change and a new

philosophy to save the Earth

14.07.2016

Kim Eduardo Torres Huanca

LANGUAGE CENTER OF SAN AGUSTIN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY

AREQUIPA - PERU

Abstract

The climate change is one the problem that we are facing today, but this was something that the
world has lived before, however, nowadays the climate change has other compound that is the
pollutions caused by the development of the human being, this is affecting the forest and the
agriculture, but also this will affect the society. This is the result of the type philosophy that we
have today, a philosophy based in the individualism and the selfish way of living of the people,
also this philosophy is based in the mercantilism. For this reason it is necessary a new way of
thinking, where we respect to our planet as something that is alive. This new way of thinking is
inside of our country, is philosophy that inca used before to develop their culture and magesti.

Introduction

The climate change, maybe everybody has heard about it, but we know what exactly climate
change is? Well it is possible to find many pieces of information about this topic. One of these, is
the basic information given by Wikipedia (2011) which says that is a change in the statistical
distribution of weather patterns when that change lasts for an extended period of time1, this
means that the average weather in the world is changing over the normal limits and this can be
known as Global Warming as well.

There is evidence that our planet has lived similar situations a long time ago, the NASA (2005)
indicates that Just in the last 650,000 years there have been seven cycles of glacial advance and
retreat, specially because of small variations on the Earths orbit2. But our recent climate change
is not only for the Earths orbit, it is also because of the pollution, and that means the greenhouse
effect (Figure 2).

1
"Climate change - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia." 2011. 14 Jul. 2016
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change>
2
"NASA: Climate Change and Global Warming." 2005. 14 Jul. 2016 <h ttp://climate.nasa.gov/>
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Figure 2. The Greenhouse Effect

Source: http://climate.nasa.gov/causes/
The NASA (2005) says that there are certain gases, that are emitted by many cars in the cities or
by many industries around the world, covering the earth and not letting the sunray light to return
to the stratosphere3. Within these gases, we can mention the water vapor, nitrous oxide, methane
and carbon dioxide. Water vapor is a gas that can be considered like a normal gas, and it is. This
gas is part of the normal cycle of the water, even dioxide carbon is a natural gas present in the
atmosphere, the real problem is the other two gases, which partially have been being
accumulated for many years, product of the human development during last century. Scientific
research have shown that the climate in the earth has risen by 0.89C from 1901 to 2012.4 (Met
Office UK, 2013)

Now, it is necessary to know what are going to be the effects of the climate change. The first
area in being affected will be the agriculture obviously. Nelson, Gerald C et al (2009) say that
the impact of the climate change will affect biologically the yield in food production, and
consequently this will affect in the food prices and also in the consume of calories and the
malnutrition of the people5. The climate change will also influence in those countries where the

3
"NASA: Climate Change and Global Warming." 2005. 14 Jul. 2016 <h ttp://climate.nasa.gov/>
4
"What is climate change? - Met Office." 2013. 14 Jul. 2016
<http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate-guide/climate-change>
5
Nelson, Gerald C et al. "Cambio Climtico." El impacto en la agricultura y los costos de adaptacin.
Poltica Alimentaria. Informe. Instituto Internacional de Investigacin Sobre Polticas Alimentarias. IFPRI.
CGIAR (2009).
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agriculture is no planified, like poor countries. In addition natural disaster, produced by the
climate change, are present now, destroying fields for agriculture even some cities.

Understanding all this information, it is evident the necessity to find ways to a get adapted to this
climate change, some paragraphs before have explained some causes of this problem, but now
lets see some philosophical causes and finally we will see some alternatives that could change
our ways of living to help our society to get adapted to the climate change.

CIAT (Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical, 2014) shows a map where Peru will have
an increase of 2 - 2.8C and the rains will decrease on the highlands to 2050. This information is
shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2. Changes in the temperature and in the rains to 2050.

Source:
https://ciat.cgiar.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/politicas_sintensis14_evaluacion_vulnerabilida
d_cambio_climatico_peru.pdf
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Nowadays philosophy of life

Our nowadays philosophy is the kind of view that we have related to our society and place where
we live. Analysing how we behave, it is really easy to observe that we are in a society where the
individual development is rewarded, this means that the selfish behaviour is over whatever thing.
This behaviour influences economy and education. We can observe how our children compete
between them try to get the best score at school or simply because they learnt to be selfish, even
we are selfish with animals, sending them to shows where they will be killed by the human being
like la corrida de toros in Spain. We are also selfish with the plants, trees and the planet,
because we do not mind them. We use the power of the money to justify the logging and the
destruction of many beautiful places in the earth, and the money is the symbol of our selfish way
of living that step by step is killing the life of our beautiful mother Earth.

Figure 3. Pollution for Money

Source: http://i45.tinypic.com/2coohh5.jpg
The forest in many parts of the world is being sold by governments to companies that finally log
trees, pollute lagoons, extract oil and contaminate the zone, move indigenous people from these
zones
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Here we can think in how we should survive without money and without this thing bad called
progress?

Andean and Amazonian philosophy to face the Climate Change

In Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia and other countries where the Inca culture developed its majestic, there
is a philosophy that survived to the time. This philosophy has alive yet in all the hearts of the
people. But what this is about?

Well, the ancient people who lived in Peru a long time ago, developed a comprehension about
the place where they lived, so they understood how the world worked, they learnt to read the
stars, the pants and the animals behaviour. Also they learnt that without the thing that they had
around them, they would not be able to live.

They understood that all the life in the world had came as product of the complement of pairs,
for example sun and earth, day and night, father and mother, etc. Understanding this, they were
able to develop their principles, considering to everything that lives around them as something
alive, for that reason they respected to the mother earth and the the father sun, they respected the
water and the animals, and for that reason every single thing that they did, was thought in the
benefits that the environment and the human being would receive.
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Figure 4. Representation of the andean Philosophy

Source: http://www.herbogeminis.com/IMG/pdf/QhapaqNan.pdf

After that, they developed some laws, specifically three laws, the first was called ALLIN
YACHAY or good wisdom, the second was called ALLIN MUNAY or to love well to everyone,
and the third was called ALLIN RUAY or to do well all the things, the combination of these
three laws will produce a new law that is called SUMAC KAWSAY, that literally means Sweet
life6 (Lajo Javier, 2010) , but also it has one meaning more that is to find our reason to exist in
this world.

For Inkas, that reason to live in this world was the preservation of the entire life in the planet.
This way of thinking is ours, and maybe we should retake it to apply it in our life to change
ourselves and start to respect to our planet,

6
"Qhapaq an: La Escuela de Sabidura Andina Javier Lajo ..." 2010. 14 Jul. 2016
<http://www.herbogeminis.com/IMG/pdf/QhapaqNan.pdf>
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Conclusion

The climate change is affecting the world, the society and it will have bad effects in agriculture
and in food prices, this is product of the kind of philosophy that we still have, based in the the
selfish. But there is some solutions to this, one of the solutions is to change this way of thinking
for a new philosophy based on the respect of all the thing that we have in the world as Incas did
with this philosophy called SUMAC KAWSAY