What a difference ten years can make. In 1992, world leaders converged on Rio de Janeiro for the World Summit on Sustainable Development, a meeting so full of good will and idealism that people dubbed it the “Save the World” summit.
Well, this year’s conference in Johannasburg, South Africa has nothing to do with saving the world. Perhaps a better title would be “Gee, it sure would be nice to do something to improve the state of the world, but since the U.S. is blocking any efforts to do so, perhaps we should make tame suggestions instead of taking any definitive action. Screw the world and its people, let’s help big business!” All right, that is a bit long for a summit title, and perhaps even a bit exaggerated–but not by much.
Ten years ago, although George Bush Senior was definitely not a gung-ho tree-hugging environmentalist, he came to the Earth Summit and signed on to various agreements to try to help the earth and the people living here–us. His son, Bush the younger, is not even attending the summit. He sent Colin Powell in his place (Poor guy; whenever Bush wants to placate the rest of the world, Colin Powell gets stuck with the task of undoing the damage of Bush’s new isolationist stance.) Not only is Dubbya snubbing the summit, but one of the most meaningful pieces of legislation to arise from Rio in 1992, the Kyoto Treaty, was firmly rejected by Bush. Although we create 25 percent of the world’s global pollution, our government refuses to take responsibility for our role in damaging the earth.
The problems of poverty, pollution, sanitation, water scarcity, renewable energy and health care are not going to go away just by thinking about them–concrete action needs to be taken, and fast. The alarming gap between the rich and the poor continues to grow and it is up to the developed countries, especially the United States and European Union, to take the lead in tackling problems. We cannot sit back and be complacent in our comfort just because we cannot see the problems in the rest of the world.
For instance, three billion people do not have adequate sanitation. three billion is a staggeringly large number–it is half of the entire world. Whatever our complaints may be about our lives at least all of us know that when we use the bathroom, our refuse gets taken away. While we are in the Internet era, people half a world away do not even half the luxury of sanitation. Sanitation is a luxury for half of the people of the world. That is absolutely shameful.
1.2 billion people live on less than $1 per day. Despite the fact that poverty is worsening around the world, U.S. poverty relief has been halved since the ’92 Rio summit. Not only that, but as far as the developed countries go, we give the least amount of aid as a percentage of our GDP.
Now maybe at this point some of you may be saying, “Well sure, these statistics all sound awfully grim, but really what should or could the U.S. do about it? After all, its not our fault that the rest of the world is poor and in bad shape.” Actually quite a few governmental policies have had adverse effects on the rest of the world. For instance, although the U.S. is an advocate of free trade and free markets all across the globe, in actuality there is a double standard. While we heavily subsidize American farmers we prevent the third world from doing the same with their meager subsidies. Cheap American foodstuffs flood foreign markets leaving the third world farmer unable to compete, which has caused many family farms to shut down. The newly poor farmers move to the cities, thus swelling the ranks of the poor. Additionally, since the World Bank and IMF (which are mostly controlled by U.S. business interests and corporations) force the developing nations to cut social spending in order to receive loans, services are not in place to help the poor of these countries and the vicious circle of poverty continues to grow.
Although the solution is not for America to cut agricultural subsidies, perhaps reviewing and reforming our policies towards other nations is warranted. After all, even if our governmental policies had no effects on the rest of the world, the moral responsibility to help those less fortunate remains.
In order for this to happen, the people need to come out with a strong voice and say to the government that we do indeed want to help the rest of the world and we do want to have a healthy earth for our children to inherit. We need to speak out. It is only through the will of the people that governmental foreign and environmental policy will change. So write to your congressman, organize a rally, get politically active and tell your elected representatives that the future of the earth and the lives of people are important. Maybe then a real “Save the Earth” summit can take place.
