‘Saving the Earth’ should be firmly on track

Twenty years ago a range of the world’s leaders and other sections who apparently had a profound interest in ‘Greening the earth’ and taking it to a more environmentally secure future met in Rio de Janeiro for the purpose of putting the project, which is easily synonymous with ‘Saving the Earth’, firmly on track.

Today, significant sections of international opinion, including many of the world’s foremost political leaders, meet at the same venue with a view to reviewing where the world has arrived at in terms of ‘Greening the earth’ and for the purpose of continuing the endeavour of taking mankind to a more salubrious and secure natural environment.

Progressive opinion the world over could take heart from the fact that the ‘Rio + 20’ Summit, as it is called, of world leaders and other concerned sections, which opens today, would effectively take stock of where mankind has got by way of saving the earth. Hopefully, they would make a concerted effort to put things right in this regard because the world has no reason to believe that much progress has been made towards advancing the Rio agenda.

In a way, times could not have been more propitious for these tasks because it is all too clear that the current world economic order is in an advanced stage of decline. The Euro Zone crisis is just one symptom of this malaise but the world should have seen it coming right along when a few years ago world hunger ominously re-emerged. This dreary and disconcerting phenomenon was accompanied by the ‘Occupy Wall Street’ movement which signaled to the West in particular that another severe ‘Winter of Discontent’ was upon it.

It makes sound sense for ‘Rio + 20’ to focus on the issue of Sustainable Development too because the global economic crisis, as we see it, is closely bound-up with the question of environmental conservation. The ‘Development Debate’ is by no means new but the Western world in particular has been slow in responding to its possible policy outcomes and theoretical applications. This is not to absolve the developing world of any blame on this score because environmental issues are today pervasive and worldwide in their prevalence and it is easy to see that not much thinking has gone into making the correct choices with regard to development models, whether East or West.

To be sure, there is greater awareness today than 20 or 30 years ago on the impact of man’s economic activities on his natural environment. Yet, essentially, growth at any cost seems to be the world’s development creed. If at all the connection between the exploitation of the earth’s natural resources and economic and food crises has been perceived, it has been with a great degree of slowness. Thus, have environmental disasters come to be the lot of mankind.

However, the plain truth is that there is a close and almost fatal link between economic avarice and the world’s natural environment. Humans can no longer exploit the earth’s natural resources in the name of ‘development’ because the resources of the earth are fast depleting, causing, among other things, natural disasters of cataclysmic proportions. These are more than just periodic happenings.

Therefore, even at this rather late hour one hopes the international community would come to recognize that it is Sustainable Development, which would be protective of the earth’s natural resources, plus promotive of economic equity, that needs to be aimed at in terms of economic advancement. Economic activity the world over must not only ensure preservation of the world’s vital resources but its fruits must be distributed equally among the earth’s denizens. This is true development and if this model was opted for, worldwide economic decline would not be upon us with its attendant social and political ills.

However, agreements arrived at in Rio must be staunchly backed by the totality of the world’s powers and it is for this reason that the leaders of the West in particular must be present in Rio and ensure that they could be counted on to support Sustainable Development.