Las fatigas de la muerte II
(chemical, capital realism)
an exhibition by Isaías Griñolo10.ENE.2026 — 07.FEB.2026
When everything goes downwards
(phosphogypsum and the crisis of civilisation)
by Jorge Riechmann
I am closely connected to Huelva's phosphogypsum. This enormous amount of toxic and radioactive waste (some 120 million tonnes accumulated since 1968 just half a kilometre from the city) derives from the manufacturing of synthetic fertilisers1. This alone creates already a physical connection, shared among all my fellow citizens. My body, like that of everyone who has grown up in agro-industrial food systems (such as the one that took shape in Franco's Spain in the 1960s), is basically built on fossil fuels and gas, unlike the bodies of previous generations (which were fueled by sunlight)2. And within this agro-industrial construction of Spanish bodies, the manufacture of fertilisers is a key element (ammonia as a result of the Haber-Bosch chemical process, and phosphates of mineral origin, at the base of typical N-K-P industrial fertilisers)3.
However, my intimate relationship with phosphogypsum goes further. During the 1960s (I was born in 1962), modern ammonia manufacturing plants were established in Spain, and in the 1970s, the industry experienced a significant consolidation. My father, who was trained as an agricultural expert, worked his entire life in these nitrogen and phosphate fertiliser manufacturing companies, which were absorbed and merged over the years: Unión Española de Explosivos, Explosivos Riotinto, Fertiberia, ERCROS... In other words, our family income (my mother worked as a “housewife”, without selling her labour to third parties) came from the manufacture of these synthetic fertilisers, whose production waste is dumped in the phosphate slurry pond in Huelva. Thus, my body as well as my soul, have, to a certain extent, been built on phosphogypsum: my entire education to become who I am (primary and secondary education at a private school, additional French classes at the Institut Français in Madrid and German classes at the Goethe Institute, a few stays abroad…) were paid for by my father's salary, earned in the fertiliser industry.
And since no industrial production is possible without generating waste4: earned by means of phosphogypsum.
What I have described is not a private story that can be dismissed as anecdotal. If we were to examine the biographies of almost anyone who grew up in Spain during Franco's developmentalist period (that is, during our country's late entry into the industrial world in the 1950s) or since then up to the present day, we would find a similar situation: we are intertwined with phenomena of domination and destruction that are beyond our individual control. The vast majority of jobs offered by our societies have an impact on nature and human health similar to that caused by the phosphogypsum in Huelva. And it is just that they occur further away from where we are (the global North retains a remarkable capacity to “outsource” costs and damage away from the centres and towards the peripheries).
In the war against nature waged by industrial societies, conscription is compulsory for almost everyone, and we find ourselves wielding weapons as lethal warriors almost without realising it. A few lines by Idea Vilariño sum up the phenomenon of our downfall: ‘Like a light jasmine flower/ falling, suspended in the air/ falling, falling, falling/ falling./ And what can it do?’
Some analysis (which I am unable to undertake here due to space constraints) would show us that individual desertion is not enough to escape these structural relationships of violence: we need to work towards systemic change (abolishing the army). Returning to the specific case of phosphogypsum, this would involve breaking free from the agro-industrial system and reducing our dependence on synthetic fertilisers through a large-scale agroecological transition that would allow us to rebuild our bodies through sunlight (rather than fossil fuels and gas).
‘How hard it is / when everything goes downwards / not to be drawn down as well!’ Wrote Antonio Machado on one of his verses... I am aware that non-violence seems almost unimaginable to us today, to such an extent that we live in societies based on violence of all kinds (gender, colonial, labour, against other living beings and nature…). But, do we have any other choice? The reason we have been talking (for decades) about a crisis of civilisation is because the war waged by industrial societies against nature is approaching its end, in the form of ecological and social collapse. It is not just a question of global warming (it would be more accurate to speak of a climate tragedy)5 or a biodiversity crisis (more precisely, the Sixth Great Extinction)6: we are violently colliding against the Earth's biophysical limits. In 2025, ocean acidification is the seventh of the planetary limits (according to the Stockholm Resilience Centre's research framework) that industrial societies are exceeding in the third decade of the third millennium7. And in the face of all this, the reaction of the capitalist elites continues to be nihilistic and exterminatory8.
Even if it is hard, when everything goes downwards, do not let yourself be drawn down. Remember: we have poetry. We have the living earth and the living ocean. We have the scent of orange blossoms and the nudity of our loved one. We have the alphabet of the clouds and the cricket’s song. How can we allow hatred, cruelty, extermination, and extinction to prevail?
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1 Huelva's phosphogypsum ponds were created between 1968 and 2010 during the manufacture of phosphoric acid from phosphate rock (used to produce phosphate fertilisers, also known as “superphosphates”). As a rock of sedimentary origin, it contains natural concentrations of radioactive uranium and thorium. Certain quantities of other toxic waste were added to these ponds. For more information on the political and legal history of phosphogypsum, see, for example, Raúl Bocanegra: “El problema radiactivo de los fosfoyesos de Huelva, una historia interminable” (The radioactive problem of Huelva's phosphogypsum: a never-ending story). Público, 5th May 2023; https://www.publico.es/politica/problema-radiactivo-fosfoyesos-huelva-historia-interminable.html
2 ‘Six out of every seven calories consumed by Europeans are derived from fossil fuels, while only one of those calories comes from photosynthesis driven by sunlight. And nine out of every ten calories consumed by North Americans are derived from fossil fuels. Dale Allen Pfeiffer is therefore entirely correct when he asserts that we eat oil.’ Pedro Prieto, ‘Lo prescindible’ (The Dispensable). 22nd July 2013; https://lacrisisenergetica.wordpress.com/2013/07/22/lo-prescindible/
3 Up until the early 20th century, natural nitrogen fertilisers such as Chilean nitrate were used. Synthetic fertilisers were developed as a result of military research during the First World War (when ammonia was used to manufacture explosives). In our industrial agricultural societies, up to 80% of the nitrogen present in our bodies (where it is a structural component) comes from natural gas via the synthetic fertilisers we use to grow food (thanks to the Haber-Bosch chemical process, which transforms atmospheric nitrogen into ammonia that can be assimilated by plants).
4 In this context, it is important to consider the overall picture of ecological economics and the notion of joint production. Contrary to the illusions of conventional economics, ecological economics points out that all production necessarily involves destruction; productive forces are always both productive and destructive. And in the last two centuries of capitalist development, the latter phenomenon has steadily gained significance, in the form of increased pollution, deterioration of natural resources, etc.
The concept of joint production (Kuppelproduktion in German) states the following: the production of goods invariably involves the generation of “evils”. When we produce goods and services, we simultaneously always create undesirable effects (‘evils’) that are often detrimental to the health of living beings and the environment. Joint production is closely linked to the laws of thermodynamics. In fact, it is a consequence of the first and second laws. Any production process can be described as the transformation of a certain number of inputs into a certain number of products, each of which is characterised by its mass and entropy. According to the laws of thermodynamics, therefore, all production is joint production, since matter and energy are conserved but entropy is increased (i.e. the quality of energy is reduced). More specifically, production processes that generate desirable goods (characterised by low entropy) necessarily produce waste and pollution (characterised by high entropy).
5 Jorge Riechmann, “Crisis climática”[Climate Crisis], Nuestra Bandera journal 267 (monograph Vivir dentro de los límites planetarios: otro paradigma es posible [Living within planetary boundaries: another paradigm is possible]), second quarter 2025.
6 Jorge Riechmann, “Ética y diversidad biológica” [Ethics and Biological Diversity], in Joaquín Araujo (Ed.), Biodiversidad en España [Biodiversity in Spain], Lunwerg, Madrid 2010.
7 Let's recap: in 2009, a group of researchers (from the Stockholm Resilience Centre) proposed a new way of measuring the ecological and social crisis: they would use several key processes for life on Earth as indicators, such as the integrity of the biosphere and the ozone layer. In an initial report, these specialists discovered that three of these indicators had already been exceeded, and in 2023, they raised the figure to six (meaning that two out of three planetary boundaries had already been reached). They issued a warning: if we continue burning fossil fuels, ocean acidification will soon join the key indicators that have already been exceeded in the climate crisis. Now, a study shows that this limit has also been exceeded. ‘It's a ticking time bomb,’ sums up one of the researchers. See Deva Mar Escobedo: “La Tierra sobrepasa otro límite planetario: la acidificación de los océanos supera niveles críticos” [Earth exceeds another planetary boundary: ocean acidification exceeds critical levels’.], El Salto, 11th June 2025; https://www.elsaltodiario.com/oceanos/tierra-sobrepasa-otro-limite-planetario-acidificacion-oceanos-supera-niveles-criticos
8In this regard, Gil-Manuel Hernández's analysis, “El normal caos del exterminio” [The normal chaos of extermination] is truly impressive. It opens with this quote from Maurizio Lazzarato: ‘The genocide and ethnic cleansing practised by the Israelis against the Palestinians does not only highlight the colonial relationship, but also the level of confrontation that the ruling classes, capitalists and much of public opinion in the North are prepared to engage in’. See Gil-Manuel Hernández, ‘El normal caos del exterminio’ [The normal chaos of extermination], Rebelión, 24 September 2025.