DOES SUSTAINABILITY
HAVE A FUTURE?
In the South, environmental problems are
a matter of life and death. Pollution and
natural devastation are so immense that it
takes no scientist to see that something
has to change. In the North, however,
environmental problems have been reduced to
numbers, statistics, and policy schemes.
There is ample funding available for NGOs
who are willing to work within the current
self-destructive global economic system,
smoothing the rough edges, improving little
things here and there. But is this effort
part of the solution or part of the
problem? Should we not expose the flaws of
the system itself in every campaign we
fight?
For example, there is no point in
highlighting nice, small-scale initiatives
involving local participation if
transnational corporations are allowed to
squeeze the world into shapes suited to
their money-generating schemes. And it's no
use putting in low-energy electric lights
if they are left on all the time.
Southern and northern environmental
problems are not really so different;
global environmental problems are just as
deadly in the North as in the South. For
instance, the Chernobyl meltdown led to
contaminated milk as far away as the
Netherlands. Cleverly, the contaminated
milk was diluted with clean milk, putting
it below maximum chemical exposure levels.
But the number of people dying from cancer
as a result of the contamination remained
exactly the same. It is no wonder that 25
percent of people in the North die from
cancer.
In 30 years, the environmental movement
has achieved a great many things. But there
is much more to be done for groups like
Friends of the Earth; for example, let us
expose those who are gaining from the
destruction of our future. Most
importantly, the sacrificing of personal
wealth for the common good has yet to begin
in the North. And time is running out.
Micha Kuiper, FoE
Utrecht, Netherlands
