EDITORIAL Worldwatch, still gloomy, airs blame, hopes
The Washington-based Worldwatch
Institute each year seems to shout at the top of its metaphorical lungs that
the human family must reinvent the way it looks at and treats the planet or
suffer catastrophic consequences.
Some in the media -- like NCR -- pick up the warning and broadcast
it as we can. But the change of mind, perhaps more fundamentally a change of
spirit, required to take the new course remains more a dream than a
reality.
Worldwatch last week gave another bleak assessment of the global
landscape as it issued its annual "State of the World" report.
According to Worldwatch, governments lag badly in meeting goals
set at the 1994 Rio de Janeiro summit on the environment. "Unfortunately, few
governments have even begun the policy changes that will be needed to put the
world on an environmentally sustainable path," the independent institute
stated.
Among Worldwatch's gloomiest conclusions: Millions of acres of
tropical forest still disappear each year, carbon dioxide emissions are at
record highs and population growth is outpacing food production.
The report found hope in increasing numbers of grassroots groups,
particularly in Bangladesh and India, the report said.
The Worldwatch report is toughest on the United States and the
World Bank.
It says U.S. leadership has faded since the summit, in contrast to
strides by Europe in fighting pollution and by Japan in maintaining foreign
aid.
Worldwatch says the World Bank, which lends $20 billion a year to
poor countries, touts environmental lending but pours funds into "development
schemes that add to carbon emissions and destroy natural ecosystems."
Worldwatch identifies a disparate group of eight "environmental
heavyweights" -- China, India, the United States, Indonesia, Brazil, Russia,
Japan and Germany -- that it says must join in taking the lead because they
have the greatest impact on the planet's health. The eight account for more
than half of the world's population, half of its forests and half of its carbon
dioxide emissions. "These eight nations have the Rio agenda -- and the fate of
the earth -- in their hands," the report said.
Worldwatch is one of those organizations that has come to the
conclusion that all humanity will sink or swim together in the coming century.
It is a notion that supersedes ideas of traditional nationalism and even
international corporate competition. What happens in the so-called Third World,
with its rapidly growing populations and increasingly damaged resources,
affects the entire planet. All ecosystems are part of one planetary
ecosystem.
That's why it is discouraging to watch the United States shy from
efforts at developing sustainable energy systems or working for greater aid to
developing nations. The United States, once the world's largest contributor of
foreign aid to developing countries, has fallen behind Japan, France and
Germany in humanitarian and economic assistance to the developing world.
Second to Japan since the early 1990s, the United States dropped
to fourth place last year, the result of a 26 percent cut in aid, according to
figures released by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development.
The United States currently contributes about 12 percent of all
nonmilitary aid to the developing world -- compared to 37 percent in the 1970s
and more than 50 percent in the 1950s. Worldwide an estimated 1.3 billion
people live in extreme poverty with an annual income of $370 or less.
Since the end of the Cold War, it has become difficult to
disentangle relief, development, democracy and security. Traditional views of
defense based on military threats in a bipolar world have to be replaced by a
much more modern and flexible concept of human security, which recognizes that
a variety of factors -- including poverty and impoverished resources -- can
cause insecurity, conflict and acute human need.
The eradication of poverty is possible within our lifetimes. The
challenge is to find the vision and sustained political commitment needed to
complete the task.
National Catholic Reporter, January 24,
1997
|