serbia766x1024.png

Demonstrators blocking a highway in Belgrade, Serbia [Photo Credit: Ivan Rajković].

This is the first part of a two-part series on anti-lithium mining protests that have erupted in Serbia over the last several months, and the broader environmental movement around it.

Last September, the outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel made her farewell tour to the Balkans. In Belgrade, she was welcomed by Aleksandar Vučić, the Serbian president whose authoritarian stunts she was repeatedly willing to overlook in exchange for a stable partnership.

The ecocidal accumulation of capital threatens the very conditions of human life on the planet.  The Covid pandemic confirms this, insofar as the increase in zoonoses over the last forty years is attributable to the destruction of ecosystems. The global ecological limits of sustainable human development have been crossed in several areas (climate, biodiversity, nitrogen and land use). They are in the process of being crossed in chemical and plastic pollution, while there is great uncertainty about other key factors of sustainability (freshwater resources, fine-particle pollut

3604bf1f6794df86e08d07370459cad7.jpg

Daniel Tanuro argued that the energy transition would require an increase in fossil energy, and therefore an increase in emissions. So somewhere along the line, to balance the climate equation, we need to compensate for this by cutting production and transport. He suggested eliminating useless or harmful production, such as weapons production or advertising.

The government's climate plans that have been adopted to date would put global warming at 3.2°C. But there won't be any civilisation at 3.2°C, Tanuro said, as there won't be enough food for everyone.