Posted on 09/09/2002 4:03:23 AM PDT by kattracks
Johannesburg (CNSNews.com) - One of participants at the "People's Earth Summit," a parallel (protest) event to last week's United Nation's-sponsored Earth summit, said, "If anyone in a developing country looks to the U.S. and wants a lifestyle like the average American--it's total bull---t!"
Paula Snyder, an American who is traveling around the developing world to promote various Green causes, told CNSNews.com , "Greed is the enemy - the underlying problem is greed, and that leads into most of the problems with the ecological system and the political system."
The People's Earth Summit was held at St. Stithians College near the U.N.'s main summit site in Johannesburg.
"We're going to need 16 more planets if everyone aspires to be like an average American," Snyder added.
'Social change project'
Snyder is traveling throughout the developing world as part of her "social change project," sponsored in part by the Earth Island Institute and Patch Adams, the famed doctor, known for his social activism and irreverent style.
Snyder said she has learned through her travels that residents of the world's poorer nations only think they want to emulate America.
"They want what we have -- but they don't realize how ugly it is," Snyder said.
Snyder implored her fellow Americans to "stop using so much...stop driving everywhere or carpool, stop wearing clothes that have brand names on them, stop using paper napkins for everything, stop using paper cups, carry your own travel mug, read Julia 'Butterfly' Hill's book, One Makes a Difference . It's the little things that really do make change." Hill is the young woman who lived in a California redwood tree for two years to protest logging practices.
"I wish I could make a total redistribution [of wealth]," Snyder said. "Things are going to change. They have to," she added.
"A lot to learn"
Katie Silberman told CNSNews.com , "I think the developing world has a lot of lessons for us as Americans in terms of limiting our consumption and reducing our waste."
Silberman is from the Oakland-based Center for Environmental Health, the group that led the heckling of Secretary of State Colin Powell during his address last week at the Earth Summit. (see story: American Environmentalist: 'I'm Ashamed For My Country')
"The American way of life at this point is so overblown in terms of materialism and consumption," Silberman explained. "We actually have a lot to learn from the Southern Hemisphere in terms of community health," she added.
Silberman cautioned against too much growth in the developing world. "We live on this one small planet and it only has a certain carrying capacity," she said.b?
'The natural way'
Eleven-year-old Akshit Batra, an Indian representative of the "Children's Earth Summit," said "greed of the people" is destroying the earth.
"People are very corrupt, they are not worried about the environment, they are not worried about the next generation," Batra said.
He said U.S. citizens "should try to change their lifestyle according to the natural way and farmers should decrease the use of pesticides."
'Ecological debt'
Richard Navarro, the chairman of Friends of the Earth International (FoEi) spoke at a People's Earth Summit conferences entitled, "Earth Democracy: Your Earth Rights."
FoEi played a prominent role in the main summit, and Navarro was sharply critical of the summit's final outcome. He said the world gathering was "hijacked by free market ideology, by a backward-looking, insular and ignorant U.S...."
Navarro's speech to the "People's Earth Summit" focused on the "ecological debt" owed by the industrialized "North to the [developing] South" for the North's pollution and consumption habits.
"How can a person on this planet have more right than others to consume more?" asked Navarro.
According to Navarro, men also owe the women a "debt" for gender bias, and he spoke of the debt that a "white person has with colored persons and indigenous peoples" because of racial discrimination.
In fact, all of mankind has "a debt from our species to the rest of nature," according to Navarro.
"Other species take from nature only what they need to survive," he stated. "Which other species has the capacity to destroy the earth?" Navarro asked.
Navarro said that the September 11th terrorist attacks on the U.S. were a tragic criminal act, but he noted, "That very same day, there were 7,000 people dying of diseases related to water [sanitation]. Isn't that also a crime?"
'New equality'
Herbert Girardet, chairman of the British-based Schumacher Society, said he was unhappy with the main Earth Summit because it was reduced to the "lowest common denominator - in other words, what the Americans think is okay."
Girardet said the agenda of the People's Summit was not to look at "what is possible, but what is necessary."
"The Earth is in such a profound sense of emergency" and "we must create a new equality between human life and the natural world," explained Giradet.
People at the People's Earth Summit waved posters reading, "Earth Spirituality"; "Free Trade Means Famine"; and an anti-genetically-modified-food poster reading, "Seed to Bread, Farmer to Farmer."
E-mail a news tip to Marc Morano.
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Snyder implored her fellow Americans to “stop using so much...stop driving everywhere or carpool, stop wearing clothes that have brand names on them, stop using paper napkins for everything, stop using paper cups, carry your own travel mug, read Julia ‘Butterfly’ Hill’s book, One Makes a Difference . It’s the little things that really do make change.” .... Snyder is traveling throughout the developing world as part of her “social change project” ...
Listen, you and your fellow globe-trotting pests should STOP burning up aviation fuel.
You could have started by sharing some of that steak and lobster you are feasting on with some of the poor starving children down the street.
She knows, better than the people themselves, what they really want. Therefore, she and her fellow petty dictators have the "right" to tell the world what to do. And she claims the problem of the West is "greed." Does she think that the Robert Mugabes of this world are murdering, lying, thieving thugs out of the "goodness of their hearts"? Could "greed" be present among dictators? Your average African dictator makes Ken Lay of Enron look like a boy scout. (Actually, let's not restrict that to Africa. Arafat's stolen and stashed away about $1.3 billion. That sounds a tad -- what is the word -- greedy?
Congressman Billybob
Click for major article on turnover in the House of Representatives: "Til Death Do Us Part."
Wash that down by lapping up some tepid river and you got some mighty-good eatin!
And please....I already understand that trying to explain the statements of these wackos is a nearly fruitless venture. I'm just trying to figure out what this one has against brand-name clothing.
Can we say "spacey, clueless, needs a good xxxxxxing, squirrel-faced little broad?
Good Lord, DON'T let this type breed!
prisoner6
Any chance she will volunteer to evacuate?
"How can a person on this planet have more right than others to consume more?" asked Navarro."
It's called survival of the fittest fellow, now go get in your hovel, walk on your knuckles I've decided your not allowed to walk upright, there's a height restriction, one man is not allowed to be taller than another.
1) I wish I could make a total redistribution [of wealth]," Snyder said. "Things are going to change. They have to,"...
2) (see story: American Environmentalist: 'I'm Ashamed For My Country')
3) Navarro's speech to the "People's Earth Summit" focused on the "ecological debt" owed by the industrialized "North to the [developing] South" for the North's pollution and consumption habits.
4) According to Navarro, men also owe the women a "debt" for gender bias, and he spoke of the debt that a "white person has with colored persons and indigenous peoples" because of racial discrimination
If you speak to these people eventually you get to the heart of their agenda. They don't care about the environment, if they did they'd see that the US in particular is light years ahead of any third world cesspool in terms of cleaning up environmental damage. A casual comparison of the Mississippi and the Ganges rivers will show that.
"Earth Island Institute, founded by environmental leader David Brower, "covers the waterfront" on environmental issues worldwide. One of its signal victories was making tuna dolphin-safe, and their mark reminds people of that achievement while characterizing the intelligence and fleetness of the group."
So transparent. Snyder's just trying to get somebody else to pay to develop HIS planet.
Wonder if Akshit is related to the aforementioned "Bullsh*t".
Aw, what the heck, let's make it an even 20, just to be on the safe side.
I'm still trying to figure that one out myself. I think it's directed at either the idea that all this mass-market stuff (like Hillfiger and Polo) which is so popular with the 'urban class' is mass-produced in third world sweat shops by those evil resource-raping capitalist pig-dog corporations. It might also have something to do with driving the need for consumer status symbols--if we didn't hold these up as desirable items, the sheeple wouldn't want them.
God, where would we be without these enlightened liberal academics (especially the over-indulged twenty-something liberal spawn)...They're so much more 'enlightened' than you or I...</extreme sarcasm>
Well, I drive almost nowhere, and when I do, I carpool. One!
stop wearing clothes that have brand names on them,
Though I haven't checked, I'm sure all the brand names on my clothing are sufficiently low class. Probably assembled in third world sweat shops, too, providing citizens of developing nations with wages they could not otherwise receive. Two!
stop using paper napkins for everything,
I don't use them for everything. Three!
stop using paper cups,
I don't use paper cups. Four!
carry your own travel mug,
I did, until I accidentally left it in another's vehicle. Plan on buying another before I travel anywhere. Five!
read Julia 'Butterfly' Hill's book, One Makes a Difference.
Why?
Okay, that's five out of six. Does that mean my lifestyle bs quotient is at an acceptable level? Or do I have to read that dang book first? If not, then I can say that being an environmentalist is easy.
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