Understanding that wealthy individuals and nations bear disproportionate accountability for historical and ongoing environmental destruction globally.
Sor Juana recognized personal responsibility for her intellectual gifts and social position—she could not claim innocence while benefiting from unjust systems. This consciousness translates to climate ethics through the principle of radical responsibility: wealthy nations and individuals caused climate change through industrialization and must bear corresponding accountability. The Global North's atmospheric carbon comes from centuries of fossil fuel burning; corporations extracted resources from colonized lands; Western consumption drives deforestation and displacement. This isn't guilt but obligation: those who benefited most from exploitation must lead in repair. Radical responsibility means wealthy countries achieving net-negative emissions, providing reparations for climate damages, protecting indigenous land rights, and surrendering false narratives of neutrality. Sor Juana's acceptance of her complicity within oppressive structures while fighting them provides a model for high-income nations to acknowledge their historical climate debt and act urgently toward justice.
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