Message-ID: <33024C4B.8D6@mind.net> Date: Wed, 12 Feb 1997 23:03:39 +0000 From: "B. Diamond" <mailto:bdiamond@mind.net> Subject: Re: THEORY: Population and Development To: mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU
mailto:EUNSteve@AOL.COM wrote: >
> In a message dated 97-02-12 12:56:57 EST, mailto:mobius99@SERIES2000.COM (Bobolinks)
> writes:
>
> << Very good Stan. America consumes 2/3 of the world's resources and is
> constantly
> trying to control the population of developing nations through its
> repressive
> instrumentalities.
> >>
> America does more to feed the hungry of the world, and heal the world of its
> sicknesses than any other nation that I know of.
>
> What are these repressive instrumentalities that we use? Information about
> contraceptive methods? Actually shipping condoms and uterine devices around
> the world?
>
> Just what do we do that you would like to see stopped?
>
> Steve Eskow
Perhaps we could stop selling third world countries pesticides and herbicides that have been banned here in the U.S, and are then "dumped" in the third world (the irony is that much of the produce we consume in the winter months comes from these countries, with the net result being that we buy and eat produce treated with banned chemicls).
Perhaps we could stop companies like Nestle from profiting from the needless sale of their infant formula to brainwashed mothers in LDC's.
Perhaps we could stop funneling 100's of millions of dollars to the Tobacco industry so that they can exploit (in the literal sense of the word) "new" markets in E. Europe, Asia, etc.
Perhaps we could stop funding the World Bank until they stop lending money for projects that promise protection for and demarcation of lands inhabited by indigenous peoples, only to delay the demarcation process until all the logs have been cut or the gold has all been removed--if the lands (as promised in World Bank documents) are ever demarcated at all (see: Brazil, Paraguay, Chile, Ecuador, and Argentina for starters).
Perhaps we could practice what we preach when it comes to protecting the world's rainforests--that is by protecting our own forests first. The world's largest temperate rainforest, the Tongass National Forest--is comprised mostly of 400-500 year old old-growth trees. We have logged approx. 30% of this wondrous forest in only 50 years.
Perhaps we could do our part to conserve resources, rather than perpetuate an economic system that puts amassing personal wealth over our responsibility to our communities and the ecosystems that we depend on for our very survival. There is simply no excuse for the following statistics:
1. The average American housecat consumes more meat per year than the average third world citizen.
2. 52% of the world's population (over 3 billion people) earn less than $U.S. 768 per year.
3. Paper products use up about 35% of the world's annual commercial wood harvest, about 60% of the garbage in amercian landfills is paper that could have been recycled.
4. Americans throw away 87% of goods and materials after a single use.
The long and short of it Steve is that we cannot sustainably develop the third world unless we simultaneously de-develop the industrialized world, which we never happen as long as profit-driven corporations dominate the policy arena.
Bret Diamond