Where We Stand,
In What Direction We Are Heading

Edward J. Dodson

[An estimate of our circumstances, the challenges we face and some of the obstacles standing in the way of permanent solutions. A presentation to the Annual Georgist Conference, Santo Domingo, The Dominican Republic, June 1992]

INTRODUCTION

In 1973, the English mathematician, scientist and intellectual historian, Jacob Bronowski, began his journalistic investigation into The Ascent of Man with this description of our species:

Man is a singular creature. He has a set of gifts which make him unique among the animals: so that, unlike them, he is not a figure in the landscape -- he is a shaper of the landscape. In body and in mind he is the explorer of nature, the ubiquitous animal, who did not find but has made his home in every continent[1]

Bronowski's language may not have been politically correct; today, most of us are more sensitive to the gender-orientation attached to the use of the terms man or mankind as opposed to human or humankind. Improvement in sensitivity has not, however, changed the reality of life for millions of individuals throughout the world.

On every part of the earth where humans are present, we have and continue to act in ways many of us now recognize as self-threatening. We have very legitimate reasons for concern that the survival of our species may be seriously at risk. With each day that passes, our collective irresponsibility pulls us closer to tragedy on a global scale. At the moment, our science can only warn us of the direction in which we travel but is not able to determine just how near we are to that point of critical mass where widespread disaster will strike. The problems we have created are seemingly without limit. Toxic chemicals we release invade our air, our water supplies, and the soil from which our food is taken. The ecosystem is attacked and permanently destroyed out of ignorance, greed and desperation. Our behavior spreads deadly diseases and creates environments for the nurturing and spread of others. Hundreds of millions of children are born into circumstances where they have almost no chance of living a decent human existence; that is, an existence characterized by access to what philosopher Mortimer Adler identifies as the goods to which we have rights by virtue of our humanity: sufficient food, clothing and shelter; access to education, medical care and leisure; and, importantly, government according to principles of justice.

As we meet here today, millions of people around the globe are dying because in society after society existing socio-political arrangements and institutions serve as agents of destruction rather than nurturing. Neither humanity nor our ecosystem are being protected. We are capable of much better, and many of us are giving all that we have to the quest for a world in which we live not only in harmony with nature but with one another as well. We are here, of course, because our task is daunting and so very far from completion.

One aspect of our problems as a species is that our ability to transform nature by use of our technology, combined with the rapid increase in our numbers, has dramatically out-paced our struggle to impart in people everywhere the universal and moral principles of behavior on which our survival as a species depends. Another scientist of our time, the physicist Carl Sagan, explained the challenge we face in these terms:

In our tenure on this planet we have accumulated dangerous evolutionary baggage, hereditary propensities for aggression and ritual, submission to leaders and hostility to outsiders, which place our survival in some question.[2]

Most of our history consists in the telling of how individuals and groups of individuals worked to corrupt the teachings of the ancient moralists -- Moses, Confucius, Christ, Mohammed and others. Settlement in one place, the transition from the hunter-forager existence to horticulture and the domestication of animals, all contributed to the formation of societies dominated by hierarchical leaderships. Warrior-protectors became warrior-oppressors, as patterns of tribal structure became less and less communitarian and leadership gravitated from wise elders to chieftains and kings who seized and held power by force. Knowledge-keepers who acquired an understanding of the environment and claimed a unique spirituality acquired their own unique positions of status and power. And, in many societies, the holding of power became hereditary and divinely sanctioned by the priestcraft of the established religion. Those who actually labored, toiling to produce wealth, had little choice but to turn over in tithes or rents whatever portion of wealth the leaders demanded. In this fashion, the operating principle for virtually every settled people became might makes right -- shrouded in tradition, ritual, ancient texts and secrecy, but built on the coercive redistribution of wealth from producers to nonproducers. As we look about us, in our own societies and around the globe, does the evidence suggest that much or little has changed? This is the issue we face as we work for universal justice.

The one great common denominator, the characteristic shared by virtually every society today -- industrialized or agrarian, democratic or authoritarian -- is the presence of impoverished people among the total population. Poverty is generally less widespread in those societies described as social-democracies and more widespread in authoritarian-governed societies. State-socialism, although ostensibly operated on cooperative principles, has also failed miserably to lift the general population out of poverty. Participatory government has achieved impressive results, but the elimination of poverty is not one of them. Our observations and review of some of the statistical evidence raise questions about whether the incidence of poverty is not once more on the rise in almost every society.

If there is reason for cautious optimism in all this apparent gloom, I suggest that the origins are to be found in the survival of the transnational quest for universal principles. Today, this effort is facilitated by an unprecedented -- and largely unexpected -- revolution in the ability of individuals to communicate with one another (almost instantaneously) from one end of the planet to the other. Millions of personal computers, many even more powerful than the one used to prepare this paper, link us together in a network of global citizenship more widespread than any form of social organization in our historical experience. To be sure, the network is still not reaching people in societies where the need for transnational association is greatest. And, there are language obstacles still to be overcome but which are diminished by software programs that generate simultaneous translations from one language into another.

Also on the side of optimism are other common denominators we share, but really take for granted. "[W]e have also acquired compassion for others, love for our children and our children's children, a desire to learn from history, and a great soaring passionate intelligence," declares Carl Sagan, who sees these as "the clear tools for our continued survival and prosperity."[3] I would add that many of us have acquired a deep and lasting commitment to liberty, to justice and to equality of opportunity. What we do not yet have is a comprehensive set of principles from which to rebuild positive law and guide the actions of individuals and society. Nor have we entered the dialogue or taken collective action in the advance of a comprehensive program by which all societies could benefit.

Those of us attending this conference who have an intimate familiarity with the writings of Henry George understand that the most fundamental human right, our birthright of equal access to the earth and its bounty of natural resources, is systematically taken away by systems of positive law. A titleholding or leasehold to nature sanctioned by positive law is a license that creates unnatural property benefitting the recipient. We are all (or nearly all) in agreement that the exchange value of these and other forms of license, as determined by the forces of demand and supply in the marketplace, is the legitimate revenue pool from which societal activities ought to be funded. What we must also do, I argue, is trust in the process of consensus-building and open debate to apply our principles to issues such as the proper functions and limitations of government, the full meaning of individual liberty and our moral obligations to one another as members of the same species. Henry George reminds us that our struggle is holistic, that there is no golden variable, no panacea -- only right action governed by moral principle:

A merciful man would have better ordered the world; a just man would crush with his foot such an ulcerous ant hill! It is not the Almighty, but we who are responsible for the vice and misery that fester amid our civilization. The Creator showers upon us his gifts -- more than enough for all. But like swine scrambling for food, we tread them in the mire -- tread them in the mire, while we tear and rend each other![4]

This is reality, a reality that has improved little since the time when George first uttered those words and then put them to paper. His thinking was original and enlightened. That we are here, together, is evidence of his lasting influence. That we are here, struggling with the same problems as did George in his activism, is evidence of the power of vested interest, greed, ignorance and oppressive socio-political arrangements and institutions. We are at the periphery of an enormous struggle; our task must be to join forces with others who are dedicating their energies to a rapprochment with our future, to forge, if you will, a common ground attached to the doctrine of human rights from which Henry George espoused a socio-political philosophy of cooperative individualism.

The times are both turbulent and opportune. State-socialism is thoroughly discredited and bankrupt. The United States, Canada and Mexico are (haltingly, to be sure) flirting with the exchange of goods and services unhampered by tariffs, quotas and subsidies. The nation-states of Europe are attempting to forge a confederation that will succeed only by relinquishing certain claims to sovereignty that have historically stood in the way of peaceful relations. Still to be resolved, however, is the fate of millions of people in Europe of differing ethnic identities who lived within the same geo-political territories only by force and who harbor deep resentments toward one another. What must also be acknowledged is the continuing legacy of European and U.S. colonialism, where governments have continued to act as agents for extractive corporate interests and participatory democracy has failed to take root.

The model of exploitation comes down from the system introduced by the British in countries where they could not subdue the large indigenous populations and so established monopolistic control over production (supported, as in India, for example, by the recruitment and training of a large, indigenous military force and alliances with feudal lords). At the same time, reformers at home pressed for removal of restrictions against trade that brought into being the system what some economic historians like to call laissez-faire liberalism. Other dynamics worked in conjunction with these aspects of a new global economy to create a powerful class of industrial landlords who used fortunes gained in mining and manufacturing to acquire land for commercial agriculture. The formation of larger and larger estates in Ireland for cattle and sheep grazing assured British industrial landlords a ready supply of cheap labor and the animosity of the British worker. Australia, New Zealand, the United States and Canada assured Britain an outlet for dissidents and relative political stability at home.

Britain ushered in the era of industrialization and provided social scientists with a new basis for describing relationships between different peoples -- modernization. What kept the new system expanding, more than anything else I have been able to surmise, was the purchasing power of American[5] yeomanry, financiers, merchants, plantation owners and commercial farmers. The living standard of propertyless peasants and factory workers was barely high enough to maintain subsistence. The number of individuals who acquired large fortunes and vast estates was rapidly increasing. Two of the primary consequences, with lasting impact, were mass poverty and ecosystem destruction. A brief look into the State of the World[6] reveals that the transition from laissez-faire liberalism as practiced in the mid-nineteenth century to the policies of democratic socialism and/or twentieth-century liberalism has continued many of the same practices up to this very day. As the imperial reach of Eurasian power has withdrawn from the Americas, Africa and Asia, only in isolated instances have the people of those societies been able to forge new socio-political institutions based on participatory democracy and a reasonably widespread access to nature. Instead, a very large portion of humanity continues to be dominated by leadership hierarchies that rule by force (supported during the post Second World War era by the United States or the Soviet Union based largely on one criterion -- whether that leadership declared itself as pro or anti-communist). The result has been to further devastate our ecosystem and reduce the existence of a billion people on this earth to a daily struggle for survival. This fact, rather than some ridiculous economic statistic such as Gross Domestic Product, is what our governments need to focus on.

I cannot, in this brief paper, begin to convey the depth of the problems that plague humanity. We read constantly of the world's individual societies being divided into categories of industrialized and industrializing, developed and developing (or less developed), into North and South, into rich and poor. Yet, as stated earlier, within every society the great common denominators are the presence of serious poverty and ecological destruction. Not every sign everywhere is so negative, but we need to keep in mind just how seriously threatened are our species and our planet. Here, then, are some of the salient facts presented in the Worldwatch Institute Report for 1992 (and other sources).

Wetlands

The world's wetlands -- habitats for fish, waterfowl and numerous other species -- have been poisoned by agricultural runoff and other types of chemical pollution, by drainage and logging. More than 90 percent of wetlands in the United States, Australia and New Zealand have in these ways been lost or destroyed. Canadian wetlands, representing nearly a quarter of the earth's reserve, are also threatened. Half of the mangrove wetlands in Central America have been converted to shrimp ponds, and the trend is similar throughout Asia and Africa.

What is only now understood is that the loss of these protective areas exposes inlands to erosion caused by the sea or salt contamination. Moreover, off-shore coral reefs are subjected to destructive changes in water temperature, nutrients and pollution discharges no longer filtered by the wetland ecosystem. Studies conducted in the Philippines, for example, revealed that over 70 percent of the reefs surrounding this nation of islands are in danger of dying.

Deserts

The destruction of arid grasslands and even forests are closely tied to the expansion of livestock production and overgrazing. One example is the grasslands of Botswana, which have been so severely overgrazed they have become barren and eroded. The water table throughout much of the southwestern United States has fallen precipitously due in part to the expansion of livestock production. In California, where water must be diverted from the Colorado River and other external sources, livestock ranchers consume one third of all water brought in by irrigation. Nationally, half the cattle and feed grains in the United States are grown only because of irrigation. Cattle are grown in Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska and the Texas panhandle with water pumped out of the Ogallala aquifer, which is now severely depleted.

Cattle play a prominent role in global desertification in other ways besides water consumption. In India, where beef is not even consumed by much of the human population, there are almost 200 million cattle and 75 million water buffalo that must forage on increasingly marginal lands. In Africa, the loss of rangeland has combined with a rapidly expanding population and short-sighted development strategies to degrade vast regions.

Research under the auspices of the United Nations indicates that 73 percent of the world's 3.3 billion hectares of dry rangeland is at least moderately desertified. In the United States, estimates are that half the 33 million hectares of grasslands are severely degraded. Of particular concern has been the destruction of stream bank habitats essential to the ecosystems of arid regions. An even larger area of degradation exists in Australia as a result of cattle drives and continued overgrazing.

In its own way, mining also creates desert wastelands, devastating entire ecosystems and leaving behind enormous toxic waste hazards. Long-term mining operations have destroyed the ecosystem of a 220-kilometer section of Montana in the United States and account for 48 of the almost 1,200 Superfund hazardous-waste sites listed for cleanup.

Contamination from copper mining on the island of Bougainville in New Guinea killed all live in the Kawerong/Jaba river system and its delta. Anger over this ecological disaster has been at the center of civil war in that area.

High-pressure water used by gold miners in Brazil has left streams, rivers and lakes polluted with sediment. These operations also release an estimated 100 tons of mercury into the Amazon ecosystem each year.

Use of cyanide to mine low grade gold reserves in the United States has resulted in the a major environmental disaster in South Carolina, killing over 10,000 fish in the Lynches River and thousands of birds who drink from contaminated holding ponds.

Farmland

Some 13 million hectares of extremely fertile land in the United States, or 2 percent of the total, is now used for growing lawns around housing units. Had urban sprawl not been encouraged by poor public policy, this land would continue to produce foodcrops, allowing far less fertile land to remain fallow.

Nearly 25 percent of the pesticides exported by United States manufacturers are banned or restricted at home. The farmers who are using this chemicals are not only jeopardizing their own health but the health of those who consume their produce. They are also subjected the ecosystem to contamination that will eventually turn the land into a toxic habitat dominated by weeds and insect pests resistant to even the most potent chemical treatments. In the meantime, the natural enemies of these pests will have long disappeared.

World production of grain climbed by 40 percent between 1950 and 1984, but has subsequently dropped by 1 percent annually. The shift to monoculture, to a heavy reliance on chemical fertilizers and pesticides have reached the point of diminishing returns. A new generation of organic farmers is now finding that alternative methods of farming can produce nearly equal or even greater yields per acre at lower costs. The key is to adopt practices of crop rotation, diversity and operate as free of debt as possible.

Forty-two of sub-Saharan Africa's 46 countries required food aid in 1990; 14 of these still did not receive enough to meet their minimum food requirements.

Forests

The tropical rain forests, home to more than half of the earth's plant and animal species are now reduced to less than one-half their original expanse.

Old-growth forests in North America and Eurasia have given way to agriculture and development, with serious consequences to climate patterns, soil erosion and other ecological problems.

Acid rain is having a serious impact on the production of maple syrup in the northeastern United States. Coal-burning in both the United States, Europe and China has been a primary culprit in the destruction of forests by acid rain. In Europe, it is estimated that acid rain will cause an annual loss of $30 billion worth of wood for the next century.

In Latin America, more than 20 million hectares of tropical forest have been destroyed to create pasture land for cattle. Brazil has already lost 10 million hectares and Mexico 18 million hectares (some 5.5 million hectares of which was tropical forest). India has experienced a similar loss of its forests.

Upon implementation of environmental regulations on timber harvesting in Thailand, the domestic industry simply removed its operations to Laos and Myanmar, continuing the pattern of deforestation and highlighting the need for international standards of forest preservation. The same principle operates in Japan, which restricts domestic timber harvesting but consumes large quantities of timber from Southeast Asia, Canada and the northwestern United States.

In Zimbabwe, half of the country's energy needs are met by firewood. As of yet, no systematic plan for renewal of this resource has been developed.

Plant Life

At the rate of habitat destruction now occurring, scientists estimate the loss of one-fourth of all tropical plants within the next generation. Some 10 percent of the remaining plant species in North America are similarly threatened.

Monoculture farming, using fewer and fewer strains of seeds, has already demonstrated itself to be a prescription for disaster -- requiring ever increasing quantities of herbicides and pesticides that poison ground water and enter the food chain as carcinogens. In the Netherlands, where livestock production is a major industry, soils are being poisoned by ammonia produced by the large quantities of animal manure that have not be properly disposed of or processed.

Minerals and Fossil Fuels

The people of the United States consume over 16 million barrels of oil each and every day. Japan, with half the population consumes only a third as much (5.25 million barrels), while China, the most populace society on earth consumes just 2.28 million barrels. Two-thirds of the world's reserves are held by just a few countries surrounding the Arabian peninsula.

Producing one ton of copper in the U.S. by conventional means requires the equivalent of more than five tons of coal for energy, half of which is expended moving and crushing 99 tones of rock to get at the copper.

Supplies of natural gas in the United States, thought to be the most viable transition fuel for automobiles, might last 60 years (considerably longer if mass transportation replaced the private automobile as the means of daily commuting to and from the work place). Geologists suspect that China possesses an equal quantity that could be used to displace the use of pollution-creating coal. By an extraordinary margin, Russia and other former Soviet republics possess the largest identified reserves of natural gas, with Iran not far behind. In the Americas, Mexico and Venezuela have supplies sufficient to replace oil for 30-50 years.

We are taking some 550 million tons of iron ore annually from the earth and produce 18 million tons of aluminum each year from bauxite deposits. The earth is mined similarly for copper, manganese, zinc, chromium, lead, nickel, tin, mercury, silver, platinum and gold. Two-thirds of these supplies are used by just eight nations in the developed world. Use in a number of developing countries -- Mexico, Brazil, India, South Korea, Taiwan, for example -- is also rapidly increasing.

Japan, Germany and other Western European countries import virtually all the minerals they use. The United States, Russia and other former Soviet republics, Brazil, Chile, China and Zaire are important producers. At present rates of use, some economically important reserves will be gone in 20-25 years.

Some 425,000 tons of oil were spilled during the first six months of 1991, or seven times the amount spilled by the Exxon Valdez in Alaska.

The Air and Its Creatures

Pollution in the British Isles has significantly destroyed the number of bird species, with the consequence that many agricultural pests have fewer natural enemies. In the U.S., carbofuran, a granular insecticide used on corn and other crops, kills an estimated 1 to 2 millon birds that mistake the granules for food.

Nitrogen and ammonia escaping from the massive amounts of animal manure collected on farms is producing acid rain.

The emission of CFCs and halon into the atmosphere has destroyed large segments of the earth's protective layer of ozone, with as yet undetermined consequences. If scientists are correct, individuals who work outside will have two choices: wear protective clothing at all times or expose themselves to the certainty of skin cancer. What this will do to plant and animal life is now the subject of tremendous controversy.

Heavy industry in many developing countries and in the former Soviet-bloc nations continue to pollute the atmosphere with millions of tons of carcinogens while contributing to the increase in carbon dioxide that is already altering weather patterns and may create the so-called greenhouse effect.

Eight of the past twelve years have been the warmest ever recorded.

The Seas and Their Creatures

An attitude of harvest to extinction, intensified by worsening levels of toxic pollution in our rivers, lakes, seas and oceans has threatened this vital food source almost beyond imagination. The introduction of alien species of fish into foreign waters has also brought less hardy species to the brink of extinction. The Nile Perch, for example, a predator that grows to 600 pounds, was introduced into Lake Victoria in 1960 and has decimated some 200 other species. The use of trawl nets by commercial fishermen is, in fact, threatening the existence of many of the lake's remaining large species. Raw sewage and chemicals further pollute the lake and reduce the diversity of life.

The use of extremely large nets in commercial fishing continues to threaten the survival of dolphins and other species indiscriminately caught in these nets. Prior to 1972, U.S. fishermen were killing almost 400,000 dolphin a year; legislation and close monitoring have brought inadvertent killings down to around 1,000 per year. However, foreign tuna fleets continue to devastate dolphin populations.

Before 1870, there were enough oysters in the Chesapeake Bay (off the coast of the United States) to filter all its water every three days; this now requires a full year because the number of oysters has declined by 99 percent. Although a ban on phosphate laundry detergents has reduced phosphorus levels in the bay by nearly 20 percent since 1986, nitrogen pollutants from automobile exhaust, power plants and agricultural runoff are contributing to the explosion of algae.

During this century, the number of species of commercial fish in Russian lakes and seas has declined by 90 percent. Logging in Malasia has reduced the number of fish species by half. Major populations of salmon and steelhead in North America have been wiped out, replaced by genetically more vulnerable fish produced in hatcheries. The commercial catch for almost all species of ocean fish has fallen off dramatically.

Shark is becoming an increasing target for commercial fishermen. Nearly 670,000 tons of shark were taken in 1985. This reduction of the shark population threatens to upset the balance between prey and predator in the oceans.

Millions of tons of animal waste are discharged into the world's rivers and groundwater. Nitrogen and phosphorus in manure overfertilize algae, which absorbs oxygen from water and destroys aquatic ecosystems. The problem is extremely serious in the Netherlands, Belgium and parts of France.

Insecticide runoff from Louisiana sugar cane fields in 1991 caused the death of more than 750,000 fish in nearby waterways.

Depletion of the ozone layer in the atmosphere has resulted in a dramatic increase in the amount of ultraviolet rays reaching the earth. In Antarctica, where the ozone depletion has been most pronounced, the production of phytoplankton has dropped by 6-12 percent just since 1987.

The Law of the Sea treaty, adopted in 1982, affirmed the claims to the natural resources of the oceans to those countries whose borders touched the seas. The major beneficiaries were Australia, Indonesia, Japan, New Zealand, Russia and the United States. The main benefit has been to reduce overfishing in the 200-mile territorial zones created and a commitment to enforcing standards of environmental protection. The United States has thus far refused to ratify the treaty because of provisions that require the payment by private interests of rent for rights to mine the world's seabeds.

Land and its Creatures

Any large animal that requires a large grazing or hunting territory is today at risk of extinction. Only the setting aside of vast wilderness areas will provide the diversity of species to support animals such as bears, eagles, mountain lions, monkeys, gorillas, just to name a few. This cannot be achieved unless human beings understand the pressures we place on other animals and begin to live very differently.

Australia has the distinction of the largest number of mammal species having become extinct. One-fourth of all extinctions recorded since the year 1600 have occurred in Australia. Scientists estimate that almost half of the continent's surviving mammals are threatened with extinction.

Humankind

Our population has doubled just since the middle of this century, and now stands at 5.4 billion. We are increasing by some 92 million people annually. Of this total, 88 million births occur in societies considered part of the developing world. Forty of the countries categorized as developing have an aggregate population of over 800 million people.

India is expected to surpass China as the world's most populace country by the middle of the twenty-first century. India's population is now 860 million and will reach 1 billion within ten years.

The average number of children born to a woman in Bangladesh is five, in Nigeria over six. Yet, the concentration of income and wealth within and outside developing societies continues to plague the advance of our species as nothing else does. Approximately 85 percent of all income received goes to just 23 percent of humankind. Just over 200 individuals possess assets valued over a billion dollars; 3 million individuals qualify as millionaires. One result of the extreme in the distribution of wealth and income is that over a billion of us must somehow survive on incomes of less than one dollar per day.

The Anti-Slavery International, based in London, contends that at least 200 million people are currently enslaved around the world. Slavery is here defined as circumstances where people are forced to work against their will, for little or no pay, and without the freedom of choice to seek alternative employment. Children are the largest enslaved population; most come from impoverished families or are orphaned or abandoned. This type of child-labor is prevalent in Morocco, India, Thailand, the Sudan, South Africa and Pakistan.

Statistics related to quality of life issues tell the rest of the story: a billion of us are illiterate, a million women die each year of preventable reproductive health problems (100 million are suffering from disabling illnesses related to reproduction and sexual activity). Woman in Africa stand a 1 in 21 chance of dying from pregnancy-related causes; in Latin America, 1 in 73. In the United States, this number is 1 in over 6,300 and in Northern Europe, 1 in 9,850. Half of all women in developing countries (outside China) suffer from moderate to serious anemia, with the worst concentrations in India, Bhutan, Nepal, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

In Bangladesh, India and Indonesia, malaria is spreading. One main reason, say experts, is the loss of over 250 million Asian bullfrogs, the natural predator to the mosquito. An adult frog can eat its own weight in mosquitos daily.

We are also experiencing a virtual epidemic of sexually transmitted diseases. Worldwide, the number of new infections is estimated to be around 250 million. Eight million people now have the HIV virus, 3 million of whom are women, and 2.5 million are Africans (1 million in Uganda alone).

The politics of scarcity are all around us. The poorest among us are continually asked to endure and endure. Speaking in the United States, Jose Lutzenberger, the Brazilian Secretary of State for Environment, declared:

It is impossible to give the whole planet the kind of life-style you have here, that the Germans have, that the Dutch have ... and we must face this reality.[7]

What he failed to say, however, was that in Latin America, 1 percent of all landowners control 40 percent of the arable land, yet much of this stands idle as part of huge estates, while peasants are driven to scrub lands, mountain slopes and the rain forests to try to subsist from the land. The dispossessed swarm to the cities, even though there is little hope for employment. In Cairo, more than ten thousand people are forced to live among the dead. Around the globe in developing countries, between 30-60 percent the urban populations are squatters living in pathetic, inhuman conditions.

Virtually every large metropolitan area in the world has consumed vast quantities of valuable agricultural land, as low density development has brought vast networks of concrete and asphalt into the countryside.

Air pollution is so bad in Bombay that living there equates to smoking ten cigarettes a day. In Bangkok, Thailand, a million residents were treated in 1990 for respiratory problems and residents are three times more likely to develop lung cancer than those who live in the countryside. For those who can do so, women who become pregnant are encouraged to leave Mexico City because of the risk to themselves and their unborn children.

Debt Left To Future Generations To Pay

Large numbers of countries have accumulated foreign debt equal to more than half the value of their domestic production, and nearly twenty countries owe more than 1.5 times this amount. Austerity programs imposed by the International Monetary Fund as a condition for additional credit have concentrated almost entirely on wholesale cuts in human welfare spending, the extraction of natural resources for exportation, heavy taxation on imports and a shift from foodcrops to export crops capable of yielding foreign reserves with which to repay debt.

Although the causes of this global debt bomb are complex, those who are paying the highest price are those who have benefited least by whatever money filtered through the hands of government officials and lending institutions for actual investment in physical and societal infrastructure.

Concluding Statement

Lester Brown concludes the State of the World report with two important observations. The first is that the struggle for real change must not only overcome vested interest, but "must also overcome human inertia." The second is closely related to the first and leaves us with a direct challenge:

Up until now the Environmental Revolution has been viewed by society much like a sporting event -- one where thousands of people sit in the stands watching, while only a handful are on the playing field actively attempting to influence the outcome of the contest. Success in this case depends on erasing the imaginary sidelines that separate spectators from participants so we can all get involved. Saving the planet is not a spectator sport.[8]

I ask that each participant in this conference comes ready to offer one and hopefully more concrete means by which to advance the cause of preserving life on our planet. For the overwhelming majority of our fellow human beings, this task has an all too real immediacy.

FOOTNOTES

1. Jacob Bronowski. The Ascent of Man (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1973), p.19.
2. Carl Sagan. Cosmos (New York: Random House, 1980), p.318.
3. Ibid.
4. Henry George. Progress and Poverty (New York: Robert Schalkenbach Foundation edition, 1975. Originally published 1879), pp.549-550.
5. Author's Note: In this context, the term American is used to refer to individuals of European heritage in North America who possessed the legal protections and financial resources to acquire landed property.
6. Unless otherwise noted, the factual information that follows is taken from the Worldwatch Institute Report on Progress Toward a Sustainable Society titled, State of the World 1992 (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1992).
7. From remarks made at the launching of The Nature Conservancy's Parks in Peril Program, Washington, D.C., November 15, 1990. Reprinted in: Ibid., p.4.
8. Ibid., p.190.