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Odds and Ends

Page history last edited by PBworks 17 years, 2 months ago

ARTICLES, PHOTOS AND OTHER ODDS AND ENDS.

 

 

Marlboro Man: Deathstyle Posterboy

 

El consumo de tobaco es perjudical para la salud.

Rough translation: Hey! Not only do I get to kill myself, but also my loved ones, friends, and an entire planet. Plus I donate thousands a year to help the tobacco companies ensnare new innocents and kill them too. Now that´s what I call a real man's vice!

 

1. The Environment Fights Back

Jeffrey D. Sachs

 

The “soft” issues of environment and climate will become the hard and strategic issues of the twenty-first century. Yet there is almost no recognition of this basic truth in our governments or our global politics. People who speak about hunger and environmental crises are viewed as muddle-headed “moralists,” as opposed to the hard-headed “realists” who deal with war and peace. This is nonsense. The so-called realists just don’t understand the sources of tensions and stresses that are leading to a growing number of crises around the world.

 

 

Article begins:''

 

Our political systems and global politics are largely unequipped

for the real challenges of today’s world. Global economic growth and rising

populations are putting unprecedented stresses on the physical environment, and

these stresses in turn are causing unprecedented challenges for our societies.

Yet politicians are largely ignorant of these trends. Governments are not

organized to meet them. And crises that are fundamentally ecological in nature

are managed by outdated strategies of war and diplomacy.

Consider, for example, the situation in Darfur, Sudan. This horrible conflict is

being addressed through threats of military force, sanctions, and generally the

language of war and peacekeeping. Yet the undoubted origin of the conflict is

the region’s extreme poverty, which was made disastrously worse in the 1980’s by

a drought that has essentially lasted until today. It appears that long-term

climate change is leading to lower rainfall not only in Sudan, but also in much

of Africa just south of the Sahara Desert – an area where life depends on the

rains, and where drought means death.

Darfur has been caught in a drought-induced death trap, but nobody has seen fit

to approach the Darfur crisis from the perspective of long-term development

rather than the perspective of war. Darfur needs a water strategy more than a

military strategy. Its seven million people cannot survive without a new

approach that gives them a chance to grow crops and water their animals. Yet all

of the talk at the United Nations is about sanctions and armies, with no path to

peace in sight.

Water stress is becoming a major obstacle to economic development in many parts

of the world. The water crisis in Gaza is a cause of disease and suffering among

Palestinians, and is a major source of underlying tensions between Palestine and

Israel. Yet again, billions of dollars are spent on bombing and destruction in

the region, while virtually nothing is done about the growing water crisis.

China and India, too, will face growing water crises in the coming

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