Earth Day has long served as an annual occasion to reaffirm warm, fuzzy resolutions about recycling and tree-hugging. But in last week’s spirit of ecogrimness, globalization–widely touted as providing a panacea for the developing world’s economic ills–also came under new scrutiny. World leaders such as President Chandrika Kumaratunga of Sri Lanka and U.S. Vice President Al Gore warned that globalization is insidiously spreading the virus of social and cultural instability, especially in countries whose natural environment has deteriorated. Said India’s outgoing prime minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee: “The victims of globalization are becoming too numerous to count, let alone help.”
A cascade of troubling reports last week highlighted the link between environmental problems and weakening economic and social structures in a growing number of nations:
What can be done? “We’ve had enough of documents, resolutions, declarations and paperwork on how to fight poverty and environmental degradation,” Paulo Francesco Fulci of Italy, president of the U.N. Economic and Social Council, said last week. What’s needed, Fulci suggests, is “a precise agenda of immediately doable things, not impossible wish lists.” Two such doables:
Late last week Carol Bellamy, Unicef’s executive director, turned up at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and called for “a sustained partnership between the private sector, civil society and governments.” In this age of interdependence, Bellamy said, “no one can be let off the hook.” Wise, timely words. Is anybody listening? And who will act?
