The energy issue: from colonial modernity to decolonizing alternatives

We live in paradoxical times. As we have discussed in previous editions of this magazine, the climate crisis has become increasingly visible and undeniable. However, the clearer its impacts appear, the further we seem to be from finding a real way out of the civilizational collapse that produced it. The illusion of a single world guided by progress and development has collapsed. Today, capitalism is no longer sustained primarily through production, but through the cannibalization of reproduction: devouring, destroying, and sacrificing to generate profits. The dialectic of value and waste permeates all dimensions of life, revealing that sacrifice is not an anomaly or an “externality,” but the very DNA of capitalism. From Gaza—the brutal epitome of settler colonialism and the collapse of liberal promises of multiculturalism and recognition—to territories transformed into extractive enclaves—in the North and South alike—in the name of a “green transition,” what is at stake is nothing less than the end of the promises of modernity and the waning hegemony of the West.