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The Earth Summit
First Published: Reflections - Philippine Daily Inquirer Publication Date: 6th May 1992 Author's Name: Father Shay Cullen SSC Do you know that a 100 year old tree in a rain forest like Subic or Cagayan gives off 20 years worth of life giving oxygen for a Filipino. Yet the loggers, legal and illegal world wide, destroy 50 hectares of rain forest every hour, every day. That's a lot of lost oxygen and tons of harmful carbon dioxide. In the Philippine most of the forest will be gone in 10 years unless there is a total logging ban, but big business, banks and politicians are against it for reasons of self interest. An average office can save about 17 trees and keep 30 kilos of air pollution out of the air and our lungs every time it recycles one ton of waste paper. World wide an average officer work throws away about 90 kilos of high grade recyclable paper every year. Can you start a recycling programme in your office and breath easier? Environmentalists want to abolish plastic bags. They are correct, plastic kills the environment, but to use paper bags might be worse. One whole tree is destroyed to make 700 grocery bags. Twenty trees are destroyed to keep a baby wrapped in disposable diapers for 2 years. The paper used is bleached and a deadly poison is produced in the process that might harm the baby. Use cotton diapers. Because of all this the planet is losing as many as three species of living creatures every day. We have to ACT NOW . When you cough and puke in the city streets, when drought and floods devastate our country, when the forests are turned into mountains of dust, you know the environment is dying and so too the planet. Major climatic changes are evident, we have extremes of temperature, drought and crop failures. Africa is worst hit. In Somalia and Mozambique alone hundreds of children and old people are dying everyday from drought, hunger and war. This is not pessimistic gloom and doom but reality. Worldwatch, a prestigious research institute said recently that global warming, due to the release of gases is irreversible and will lead to the extinction of thousands of life forms. Millions of humans are at risk too. The Earth Summit, a meeting of environmentalists and heads of state will meet in Brazil this June to try and reach some agreements on how to stop the destructive practices that pollute the planet and destroy its ecosystem. Will the summit be another stand-off between the rich and the poor, North against South? Northern industrialized countries now want poorer developing countries like the Philippines to cut back on producing these chemicals and postpone industrialization. They are worried that if poorer countries imitate their industrial "success" and Third World populations continue to explode at one billion a year their environment is doomed too. They want to sell the South their manufactured products and the South to sell them food. Through price manipulation these commodities are kept low and the producers poor. The worst polluters and destroyers are from the North. Their dangerous gases are eating up the atmosphere and the ozone layer like a veracious pacman. New international agreements are vital but they must be fair, and by common consent. The North which grew rich by feeding off the south for centuries must help the 127 impoverished countries truly develop and save their environment at the Same time. They must help by fair trading and just relations. They can change things around by reducing trade barriers, cancelling debt, stop the selling of arms to Third World countries, and deal directly with people's organizations rather than the wealthy and corrupt elite. The World Bank and the IMF which help multinationals more than the poor can end exploitation and destructive polices. These institutions admitted that world poverty increased for two consecutive wears despite their polices. Some would say because of them and by this year the IMF collected 4.2 Billion in debt repayments more than it gave out in loans. The Third World countries are not lazy beggars with bottomless bowls. They are impoverished because historically they have been systematically exploited by the countries who grew incredibly rich by carrying off the raw materials and now control world trade. The poor remain poor because of debt and the corruption and ineptitude of local rulers who cooperate and condone the destructive practices. In this way they condemn their own people to hunger and poverty. That wealth is repatriated to the home country in the North and some of it is channeled back as loans to former colonial countries through wealthy elites who act as agents for the rich countries. These loans now total $1.5 trillion. The Earth Summit is all about making new rules hopefully, it will bring some significant benefits to the poor. But the North and developed nations must curb its appetite for the worlds resources and consumer goods. a society driven by the desire to possess more and more satisfies a few but alienates the majority. Witness the result of this in mighty America as Los Angeles burned and almost consumed itself because of hate, anger and resentment at the injustice and racial discrimination. The "selfish society" is one on the path of self-destruction and what we need in Brazil is a radical change for a simpler and non-wasteful and damaging way of living. To care for others is to care for the earth.
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