=======================Electronic Edition========================
RACHEL’S HAZARDOUS WASTE NEWS #67
—March 7, 1988—
News and resources for environmental justice.
——
Environmental Research Foundation
P.O. Box 5036, Annapolis, MD 21403
Fax (410) 263-8944; Internet: erf@igc.apc.org
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STATE-OF-THE-WORLD REPORT SAYS WE CAN SAVE GLOBAL ENVIRONMENT.
Earth’s environment is deteriorating at a record rate, but the
decline could be reversed by sensible programs, says the fifth
annual STATE OF THE WORLD report from the Worldwatch Institute
released last month. It would cost perhaps $150 billion per year
to reverse the trend of environmental destruction worldwide and
put the developed and developing nations onto a path of
sustainable economic growth, the report estimates.
The money is needed for reforestation, halting and reversing the
loss of topsoil and the growth of deserts, family planning and
other measures to curb population growth, development of energy
sources that do not damage the environment, and dealing with the
heavy burden of third world debt. The debt is an environmental
issue because it leads poorer countries to waste their resources
to obtain immediate capital.
“Putting the world on a sustainable footing will not be easy,
given the environmental degradation and the economic confusion
that now prevail,” says Lester Brown, director of the institute.
To do so would take “a wholesale reordering of priorities, a
basic restructuring of the global economy, and a quantum leap in
international cooperation.
“To continue with a more or less business-as-usual attitude–to
accept the loss of tree cover, erosion of soils, expansion of
deserts, the disappearance of plant and animal species, the
depletion of the ozone layer, and the buildup of greenhouse
gases–implies the acceptance of economic decline and social
disintegration,” Mr. Brown says.
The report points to a ready source of funds for the needed
programs: the $900 billion currently spent on military buildup
each year by the world’s nations. Mr. Brown points out that
during the past decade China “walked away from the arms race” and
in the process doubled per capita income and increased food
production by 50%. This is the institute’s fifth annual report
on the state of the world. Among the issues examined this year
are ways to use energy more efficiently, reforestation, action to
stem the accelerating extinction of plant and animal species,
family planning, and control of toxic chemicals.
In assessing the earth’s “vital signs,” the report says “the
readings are not reassuring.” The earth’s forests are shrinking,
its deserts are expanding and its soils eroding–all at record
rates.
Underground water tables are falling in North Africa, China and
India, and groundwater in the United States and other areas is
increasingly contaminated by pesticides and other toxic
substances. Lakes are dying from acid rain in the industrial
North of the globe, and the entire world faces the prospect of
imminent warming because of the ‘greenhouse effect,’ the buildup
of carbon dioxide and other gases in the atmosphere which
prevents the sun’s heat from escaping back out into space, thus
heating the earth unnaturally.
“The health of the earth’s inhabitants cannot be separated from
that of the planet itself,” the report warns.
SO FAR AS WE CAN SEE, THE BEST ADVICE IS STILL “THINK GLOBALLY,
ACT LOCALLY.”
Copies of the STATE OF THE WORLD report are available for $9.95
from: Worldwatch Institute, 1776 Massachusetts Ave., NW,
Washington, DC 20036; phone 202/452-1999.
–Peter Montague, Ph.D.
Descriptor terms: worldwatch institute; studies; findings;
environmentalists; earth; reforestation; population control;
erosion; ozone; greenhouse effect; military; groundwater; acid
rain;