The media is reporting on a major controversy. A great injustice perpetrated by the Palma City Council: the Christmas lights don't reach all corners of the city with equal abundance and intensity. Intolerable.
The arguments, which are definitive, have to do with the right of working people to joy, with the excitement of children, with boosting Christmas shopping... All irrefutable.
It's unbelievable how we've internalized this unjustifiable excess of Christmas lights as a "basic need." The problem isn't that some neighborhoods have few lights, but rather all the absurdity we hang in the streets, whether in the city center or the outskirts. This citive, haughty, fortive Applied systematically and year after year to every facet of unrestrained consumption, it is not sustainable. Shouldn't we start to backtrack?
Now it seems like a pipe dream, but in the 1970s—in the midst of the oil crisis and with austerity still occupying considerable centrality in the general value system—the issue of Christmas lights was a subject of social debate and received significant feedback. Some years restraint or even degrowth was implemented. And well into the 1980s, Mayor Aguiló was still switching on the lights—very discreet ones—on December 23rd.
Now the figures are spectacular and, obviously, always on the rise: 3,350 light modules, 614,396 m of garland (12% more), 1,048 light balls, 1,106 lit trees. Sometimes they are lit for seven hours; Sometimes, all night long... But the only controversy is that there could still be more.
The uncritical and development-oriented view of Christmas lights is a reflection of an era in which we have learned to confuse consumption with well-being, fun with freedom, and stupidity with prosperity. And this nuisance of energy collapse and climate emergency won't spoil our party.
COP30 has once again highlighted the difficulties of advancing climate action: denialist Trumpism, the lack of European leadership, the weakening of multilateralism and international cooperation, the delay of the climate agenda – the continued existence of combustion vehicles and power plants, the growing uncertainty about the ethics and equity of the transition processes, the economic expectations of the major powers and corporate empires, the reckless stubbornness of theDrill, baby, drill'From Texas to the Arctic...
And in this general context, our consumerist compulsion—nihilistic and escapist—reaches unsustainable levels, which we have normalized in the form of 'basic needs', 'everyday pleasures', 'childhood joys', 'unrenounceable childhood joys'... in the style of Christmas decorations, Black Friday, the fast fashion, excessive air conditioning, AI (+80% of energy consumption in three years), the afternoonCompany dinners, gifts, sales, Secret Santa, outdoor cafes, unnecessary trips, social hyperactivity... lest we be late.
And among all the 'basic needs' we've created for ourselves—and forgiven—one unquestionable clause stands out: tourism as a fundamental right. All human beings are born free and equal in dignity... and have the right to travel.
It was amusing to hear Professor of Civil Law Sergio Nasarre at the government-organized housing conference—a veritable neoliberal witches' sabbath, by the way—explain that the big problem with regulating—not prohibiting—tourist rentals in New York has been "the enormous increase in hotel prices." As if this, naturally, should concern us all greatly and we should empathize more with a tourist looking for a hotel than with a family that can't find a house.
And the thing is, travel (8% of global emissions) has gotten out of hand. 100% of the December PMI-MAD flights are already fully booked. Passengers on the Palma-New York route have increased by 30% in 2025, and obviously, not all of them are American... Tourist exchanges—we insist: bidirectional—with Mexico, Canada, China, Australia, Brazil, the Persian Gulf... continue to rise dramatically in the Balearic Islands.
The data comes from Turespaña, but you only have to eavesdrop in the shop, the hairdresser, the office, the staff room... Every Monday, a recap of "getaways": a concert, a birthday, some shopping, buying lottery tickets... like taking a taxi. And upon returning from vacation, a general "Marco Polo" session: if you haven't just arrived from Thailand or Vietnam, it's best to keep quiet. But, of course, the tourists are always everyone else. And our emissions, venial.
