The Rio summit in 1992 did not reflect the concerns of the Third World in any detail at all. And they are the ones severely affected by any change in global policies. But yet the meager suggestions (Local Agenda 21) for helping the world out of a deadly predicament are viewed by some as detrimental to their interests. This is not very heartening. Especially considering that the damage done to the global environment is the result of industrial revolution. I know that there are people who argue that natural forces plays a much greater part in changing the environment than man made calamities. But as any one who has lived in a city would have found out for themselves, this is not merely a lie, but is the epitome of untruth. To deny the evidence of one’s own senses and oppose something because the terminology reeks of leftist literature would be dastardly.
It may be true that some of the concepts involved in it are socialistic in orientation. Some of the more involved activist groups in this struggle are targeted by the left as usable platforms to put their theory forward- The feminists, the social activists, and ethnic groups, but that alone does not lessen the importance of the issue. An obvious truth does not become something else because it is stated by those that we oppose. Yet this seems to be the major factor with those who are disillusioned by Agenda 21 put forward by the 1992 Rio Summit. We have seen that socialism as formulated by Marx and company proved to be so inflexible that it had to break than yield. But the spirit of socialism is not dead. This was not invented by Marx. It existed at all periods of human development. It is as ancient as the humanity itself. Yes it may still stand at the opposing end from the capitalistic conception of the world, but who cares where it stands in the globally intimidating environmental scenario. Life itself is being threatened by it. We need to take some steps to normalize the situation.
Asking the wealthy to limit their usage of natural resources is not a great crime. Let us not evade the real issue here, when the world heats up and the ocean’s starts to swell by the melting ice on the poles there would not be any discussion about whose ideology is right and whose is wrong. There would only be perdition and death everywhere. Any sane individual would see this point. This is where conservation of natural resources attains importance. It is a good thing that there are individuals like Al Gore who are aware of this very basic fact in America. He also starred alone in a movie on environmental issues. There are some very good points being raised by that movie.
The issue is real. It may also be political too. Take Brazil for example. Some good part of their international revenue comes from their forests. The Amazon interests us all. We know that it can not be destroyed to help a people live. But at the same time we can not ignore the accusations that America is destroying vast areas of forest land to build houses especially in Oregon. Considering the American habit of building entire houses out of wood this appears to be a serious allegation. An estimate says that a normal American consumes 60 times more calorie than an ordinary human actually need to do. This may be the result of years of conditioning. If some one says that this could be limited and the resources utilized in some other way there is nothing wrong in it. Individualism is all right, but only up to a point. Depleting resources may take such rights away from people in the future.
The anti Agenda 21 activists voices some concerns too. They are afraid that the left is trying to emerge as a potent force by brainwashing people with this depiction of global disaster scenario while no such thing exists in reality. I believe that the real reason is political than anything else. To be mind controlled by the “defeated” socialists through the back door is rather frightening to the American ego. They had thought that the fall of the Soviet Union had erased socialism for once and all from the world and from then onwards they can play police and robber with the rest of the world. Now it seems that they are being forced to play the part of the robber quite contrary to their idea of the script.
Poor Americano, he is under attack from all sides. His government is trying to get inside his head with what they call the non lethal weapons. His political adversaries are trying to change his society from inside by bringing out “restrictive” social forces and movements like local agenda 21. He is not to eat, switch on TV, put the A/C on, take out the car for a spin and generally do nothing other than save the world environment.
We can’t blame him for being a little paranoid in a changing world. His government is even trying to take away his right to carry weapons. Sustainable development indeed, fancy terms for fancy methods of manipulation!
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