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| Although we had met several times in places like Stockholm, Geneva and Paris, I first properly got to know Mostafa K. Tolba in Nairobi in 1976, when he had just become the head of the United Nations Environment Programme and I had just joined the staff. That was a truly busy time in the life of our young organization, what with setting up the first headquarters of a UN organization in a developing country, moving to a new campus and creating worldwide programmes to address the growing threats to our planet’s life support systems. ... more |
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| Over the past fifty years, the governments of poor countries have been in hot pursuit of their chimeric dreams of bringing development to their nations. Armed with an arsenal of economic weapons borrowed from their friends in the North, they have lanced this way and that, hoping to destroy the scourges of poverty: hunger, ignorance and early death. What they, with a few exceptions, have got instead is more poverty, more pollution, and more people.
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| What hope is there for this planet if the countries of the global South start to consume resources as the global North does today? Or if the vast numbers of poor in our world demand the same things the rich few already have? They are not only entitled to do so under any concept of fairness and justice, but are also being encouraged to by the forces of the global market. What will be the demographic, economic and environmental impact in the longer term if poverty and marginalisation in the economy of our world further delays the stabilisation of its population?
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| Most governments drive into the future with only the rearview mirror to guide them. Despite growing scientific evidence that our present patterns of consumption and production are leading to massive disruption of the planet’s life support systems - particularly its climate and living resources – the momentum of our economies seems only to grow. International treaties have been negotiated to slow this headlong race to self-destruction, but the foot on the accelerator pedal continues to press harder than the one on the brake; the biggest polluters are
still the biggest defaulters. ... more |
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| With three simple Latin words, “Cogito, ergo sum”, Rene Descartes gave birth nearly four hundred years ago to the school of philosophy that sustains the whole of modern science. “I think, therefore I am”
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| The world has for so long been run by those who have usurped the power to run it, and in the manner that is to their best advantage, we frequently forget that they have no more right to do so than anyone else. ... more |
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| Environmental activism has traditionally been concerned with “preventing harm”, particularly the harm that is associated with the side effects of social and economic activities. ... more |
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Men and women have different needs, aspirations and access to resources. They play different roles, and often face different opportunities and constraints in their lives and livelihoods. Yet, at least in a modern democracy, it is unacceptable that social or cultural circumstances should prevent a person of either sex from attaining his or her full potential and leading a happy and fulfilling life. The purpose of highlighting the dimension of gender is simply to identify those areas where either men or women (usually the latter) are disadvantaged by ... more |
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| If our economic activity destroys the capability of the ecosystem to sustain our life support systems, which it will do if our decision systems continue to ignore their value, future generations will pay a very heavy cost. ... more |
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| There are few parts of the world that have been immune from the tendencies in recent decades for societies and economies to become more and more consolidated, centralized and authoritarian ... more |
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