Posted on 03/16/2006 9:45:26 PM PST by Coleus
The aims of the World Summit on Sustainable Development are laudable. Cleaner air and water, better stewardship of global resources, the eradication of poverty and disease no one can argue with such objectives. The question is how to get there from here.
Let me offer a prescription for sustainable development that begins with a simple and powerful idea - an idea which, unfortunately, will often be at odds with what delegates, journalists and other observers hear in Johannesburg. The idea is that economic growth leads to levels of wealth and income that, in turn, inevitably produce societies that are cleaner, healthier and more stable and that use global resources more efficiently.
It is an idea that has been validated in academic studies and by centuries of history, an idea that is especially important at this time and in this place. Since developing nations will improve their environments as they grow richer, the major thrust of a global conferences like Johannesburg should be to help them grow richer not to place restrictions upon them (and on other countries) that will ultimately thwart their growth.
The idea of economic growth stands opposed to the idea of impending scarcity, a notion that is gaining currency again today, just as it did more than 200 years ago with the writings of the Rev. Thomas Malthus and 30 years ago with the success of The Club of Rome's book, "Limits to Growth." Malthusianism is a repudiated concept that will not die. It creeps on.
The latest manifestation is a pre-conference report by the World Wildife Fund which, in the words of British publication The Observer, "warns that the human race is plundering the planet at a pace that outstrips the capacity to support life."
(Excerpt) Read more at jewishworldreview.com ...
I sat in on an international fisheries symposium a few years ago that had 25-30 of the top fisheries scientist / economists in the world debate sustainability of fishing globally. After three days they came away with one conclusion, there are too many people living on this planet.
There is only one solution: Feed all the NGO's to the fishies. That should about do it for another 500 years.
We already have "sustainable development".
It's called capitalism!
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