Message-ID: <Pine.SOL.3.91.970108073514.3331A-100000@fox.ksu.ksu.edu> Date: Wed, 8 Jan 1997 07:35:58 -0600 From: kerry miller <mailto:astingsh@KSU.EDU> Subject: Debating/Promoting Sustainability (fwd) To: Multiple recipients of list DEVEL-L <mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU>
---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sun, 05 Jan 1997 10:50:28 -0500 (EST) From: Mike Nickerson / Inviting Debate <mailto:sustain@web.net> Subject: Turn Around Decade - Spun Out !April 27, 1997 will mark a full decade since "Our Common Future" confirmed that the human family is living beyond the Earth's long-term ability to support us. Thanks to the impeccable credentials of its authors, the World Commission on Environment and Development, this report ended years of official denial.
No one disputed the need for change - at first.
It was said at the time that we had ten years to turn civilization around and head for sustainability.
And turn around we did - twice!
The first turn around was a spectacular rise of public concern for the environment. Recycling programs that had been put off for years were rapidly adopted, many attaining 90% participation within the first few months. Information about environmental matters was everywhere. Reduce, reuse, recycle was on everybody's lips. With a little leadership an historic transformation of civilization would have taken root.
The currently powerful were not heard from at first. Then, on October 19 1987, the day "Our Common Future" was tabled for discussion at the United Nations, enough financial dealers sold off shares in polluting industries to trigger the biggest stock market crash since 1929. Soon the spin doctors were at work spinning the message of environmental sensitivity into that of sustainable development. The focus shifted from concern for "drawing too heavily, too quickly, on already overdrawn resource accounts to be affordable far into the future without bankrupting those accounts." to the notion that we had to multiply industrial production ten fold to enable poorer nations to approximate western life styles. Sustainable development, some espoused, was to stimulate sufficient development to sustain investment opportunities. This second turn around paved the way for 'free' trade and economic globalization
The captains of industry accepted the advise that 'we don't have environmental problems, only public relations problems.' The mechanisms for managing public opinion were employed and our governments are now dedicated to eliminating social and environmental constraints on development.
Will the mass media mark the tenth anniversary of "Our Common Future"?
Not likely! They are in the business of selling products not accommodating social transformation. They sound a thunderous roar applauding perpetual economic expansion. If we are to turn around and head toward an environmentally sustainable future, citizens will have to make their voices heard above the din of the mass media.
In "Horton Hears a Who", Dr. Seuss pictures a tiny world in great danger. The only hope for the inhabitants was to join their voices together and call out as one. Our circumstances are similar in that we have to make a call clear enough to be heard through the din of the mass media.
Citizens must know that there is an alternative to growing into oblivion. Policies based on sustainability can provide for human need more effectively than those presently serving economic expansion.
This alternative introduces a spectrum of issues ranging from natural resources and pollution through equity and justice to the realization that there is far more to live for than material consumption.
The 10th anniversary of "Our Common Future" is an opportunity to make ourselves heard. Please, help make sure it is not missed.
Inviting Debate offers a variety of materials and techniques for focusing public concern into an open discussion about the purpose of our economic system. We'd like to hear from you.
Inviting Debate mailto:sustain@web.net http://www.cyberus.ca/choose.sustain P.O. Box 374, Merrickville Ontario, Canada, K0G 1N0 (613) 269-3500
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