In Halifax, Nova Scotia, a conference was held on
15-17 October 1989, based on the concept of "sustainable
development".
The conference was organized by the Nova Scotia Department of the
Environment and was called "Building
Partnerships for Environmentally Sound Development in Nova Scotia".
One
of the conference
objectives was
"to initiate the process of drafting
a sustainable development strategy
in Nova Scotia". The
conference
featured various corporate and government speakers, a UN spokesperson,
"environmental consultant"
Susan Holtz,
long associated with the Ecology Action Centre, and Ray Coté of
the Dalhousie School for
Resource and
Environmental Studies and chairman of the Pest Control Products
Advisory Committee, set up by
the Nova
Scotia government to legitimize pesticide use in the province. All of
the keynote address speakers –
Noel Brown of
the UN, Ray Coté, Roy Aitken of INCO, and Susan Holtz – were
supporters of sustainable
development.
A number of environmentalists in Nova Scotia took
part in the Halifax conference. The Ecology Action
Centre
publicly defended its participation on the radio and in the newspapers.
Cristina Pekarik, co-executive
director of
the Ecology Action Centre, was reported as saying, "The conference is
needed to build links
between the
environmental movement and business" (Halifax Daily News, 14 October 1989).
Notwithstanding this endorsement, some environmentalists opposed taking
part, and the Green Web issued
a press
release asking Nova Scotians and environmentalists to repudiate the
conference and the concept of
sustainable
development.
Even prior to the Halifax conference, sustainable
development had been supported by some
environmental
groups in Nova Scotia. Thus a statement dated 15 November 1988, dealing
with Stora Forest
Industries,
endorsed by the Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides, Ecology
Action Centre Forestry
Committee,
Northeast Margaree Environmental Association, and the New Waterford
Fish and Game
Association
noted:
Such activities indicate that
environmentally sustainable development is being ignored.
Sustainable development, a
principle endorsed by the Canadian government,
stresses that we must integrate
environmental considerations into economic activity if
we are to leave a healthy legacy
to future generations. It is time for these goals to be
integrated into policy and
decision-making.
In New Brunswick, the Conservation Council, the
province's equivalent of the Ecology Action Centre,
organized a
joint workshop in Fredericton, 23-24 April 1988, with the provincial
Federation of Labour.
Funding was
from Environment Canada and "support" from business groups like
Brunswick Mining and
Smelter
Corporation, McCain Foods, and Miramichi Pulp and Paper, was publicly
acknowledged. A
June 1988
publication, Jobs and Environment,
reporting on the workshop, presented the general
theme that we
are all in the same boat and stated that "a joint press release
supporting sustainable
development
and opposing 'job blackmail'" was issued. New Brunswick cabinet
ministers were in
attendance at
the jointly sponsored workshop.
The Ecology Action Centre and the Conservation
Council have provincial equivalent organizations
across the
country. On a national level, equivalent groups would be Friends of the
Earth and Pollution
Probe. These
organizations, with their paid staff, can be said to represent that
tendency within the
environmental
movement which solicits government and corporate handouts and which
explicitly
advocates
working with, not against, the provincial and federal governments. As
shown very clearly
in Nova
Scotia, such groups are the environmental organizations which the media
consult for an instant
"environmental" voice on any issue. It apparently does not matter
that these groups often have little
or no
practical involvement with the issues at the grass roots, issues on
which they so willingly speak
out with
voices of authority and moderation on behalf of the whole environmental
movement.
Sustainable Development Defined
The term "sustainable development" has been
popularized through the publication in 1987 of the
400-page
United Nations document Our Common
Future by the World Commission on Environment
and
Development, popularly referred to as the Brundtland Report after its
chairperson. However, the
term is part
of the subtitle of an earlier influential document, the 1980 World Conservation Strategy:
Living Resource Conservation for Sustainable
Development, prepared by the International Union for
Conservation
of Nature and Natural Resources, with the assistance of the World
Wildlife Fund
and several UN
organizations.
The UN publication Our
Common Future defines sustainable development as follows: Sustainable
development is development that meets the needs of the present without
compromising the ability of future generations to meet
their own needs. (Page 43)
The lack of concreteness in such a definition and
the juxtaposition of such apparently contrasting
terms as
"sustainable" and "development" have meant that there are many
different interpretations of
sustainable
development. However, the Brundtland
Report provides plenty of evidence
for what the
Commissioners
had in mind.
More Economic Growth
The Report
emphasizes that economic growth is needed
and advocates a five to tenfold increase,
worldwide, in
manufacturing output:
The world manufactures seven
times more goods today than it
did as recently as 1950.
Given population
growth rates, a five to tenfold increase in manufacturing output will
be needed just to raise developing-world consumption of
manufactured goods to
industrialized-world levels by the time population growth rates level off next
century. (Page 15)
In case anyone doesn't get the message, we are told: The Commission's overall
assessment is that the international economy must speed up
world growth while respecting
environmental constraints.(Page 89)
Yet, much of our existing economic activity is
already destroying the natural world around us,
as global
warming, species extinction, ozone destruction, worldwide toxic
contamination, rising
sea levels,
acid rain, etc. demonstrate, for those who want to see.
To have a truly sustainable economy, much of the
economic activity in the polluting "developed"
world has to
be reduced, not further expanded. The Green Web, therefore,
characterized sustainable
development as
ecopornography at the time of
the Halifax conference. That is, prostituting the
Earth for
economic growth, regardless of environmental costs, despite claims to
the contrary.
Ecology Is Not Primary
In the Brundtland
Report, ecology or ecological
sustainability is not primary, but merely one
among a number
of factors to be considered:
The ability to choose policy
paths that are sustainable requires that the ecological dimensions
of policy be considered at the
same time as the economic, trade, energy, agricultural,
industrial, and other dimensions – on the same agendas and in the same
national and
international institutions. That
is the chief institutional challenge of the 1990s. (Page 313)
Human-centered Orientation
This is made clear in the Foreword by Brundtland
herself:
But first and foremost our
message is directed towards people, whose well-being is
the ultimate
goal of all environment and development policies. (Page xiv)
Other species of animals and plants do not have
intrinsic value in their own right, but are
considered
"resources" for human use. The Brundtland
Report has a resourcist view
of the
world.
"Resources", from this perspective, do not have value until they are
made into
products
useful for humans. Conservation of living
natural resources – plants, animals, and micro-organisms, and
the non-living elements of the
environment on which they depend – is crucial for
development. (Page 147)
The Brundtland
Report accepts the elimination of
some species and advocates that conscious
choices be
made by humans to this end: Explicit efforts to
save particular species will be possible for only relatively few of the
more
spectacular or important ones.
Agonizing as it will be to make such choices, planners need
to make conservation strategies
as systematically selective as possible. (Page 164)
Is this ecological
sustainability?
Population
Growth Accepted/Projected
This UN Report
projects a world population of 8.2
billion persons by the year 2025 (see page 101).
Yet if humans
share the planet on a basis of equality with other forms of life, then
as human numbers
expand, other
life forms and their habitats are destroyed. An ecologically
sustainable planet for
nonhuman life
forms (and for humans!) requires a vast decrease in human populations.
This is
particularly
true in the polluting developed world, with its nonsustainable
lifestyle. As this Report
itself
points out,
about 90% of the hazardous wastes generated in the world come from the
industrialized
countries (see
page 226). Yet the Brundtland Report
seems to accept the ecologically
destructive lifestyle
of the
developed world as something to be strived for by the rest of the world.
No Transfer of
Productive Wealth
There is much to learn from the Brundtland Report
concerning the deterioration of the world
environment.
Also, the Report gives the
data to show how the underdeveloped world,
with a few
significant
exceptions, is becoming poorer in comparison to the developed world and
that countries
which are
poor, have massive debt repayments, little productive land available,
rapidly increasing
populations,
etc. put environmental concerns on the back burner. But, apart from
moral
exhortations,
there is nothing offered about the necessity
to transfer much of the
existing
productive
wealth from the "developed" to the underdeveloped world. The Green
Web in its
press release
on sustainable development called for a massive global transfer of
wealth and for the
"cancellation
of third-world debts". Also, it is obvious that within countries there
is a class structure
which
concentrates the existing wealth in a relatively few hands. So
environmental protection also
means an
internal redistribution of productive wealth. People are not going to
starve to death to
preserve the
planet. We live in a global ecological commons, and the solutions to
the rapidly
developing
disaster we all face have to be global in nature. This, in addition to
addressing more
"site
specific" pollution problems, which fall within existing national
jurisdictions.
Greater Use of
Chemical Fertilizers/Pesticides Advocated
The conventional thinking of the Commissioners is
nowhere better shown than in their comments
on this topic.
The environmental damage from the use of fertilizers is acknowledged
(page 126) and
the thousands
of people who die and are injured from pesticide poisoning are
recognized (page 126).
Yet, it seems,
being committed to economic growth means learning to live with the
dangers: "The use
of
agricultural chemicals is not in itself harmful." (Page
126)
Many countries
can and should increase yields by greater use of chemical fertilizers and
pesticides,
particularly in the developing world. (Page 135)
Canadian
Support for Sustainable Development
Given the actual definition of sustainable
development, with its various features as outlined in this
Green Web
Bulletin, why has it been so widely endorsed? This section of the paper
addresses this
interesting question.
Federal and Provincial Governments
It was Canada which originally proposed the idea of
the UN creating a World Commission on
Environment
and Development. The Commission, which was formed in 1983, was strongly
supported in
its work by Canada.
In a UN speech after the publication of Our Common Future, Tom McMillan,
then Canada's
environment
minister, gave an enthusiastic endorsement, noting how in Canada a
"National Task
Force on
Environment and Economy" was formed in anticipation of the Brundtland Report.
McMillan noted:
The Government of Canada believes
that environmentally sound policies are not a brake on
the economy; they are an integral
part of the engine of growth. (Address by McMillan to the UN,
19 October 1987)
Lucien Bouchard, the current federal minister of the
environment, endorsed sustainable
development in
an October 1989 speech to the UN. He commented that "sustainable
growth"
is
possible and
pointed out:
The sustainable development
prescription has now been endorsed as a guiding
concept by this Assembly and the UN system, by the G-7 Economic
Summit nations,
the Commonwealth, the Francophone Summit and many others. Individual
governments at all levels in Canada and elsewhere
have adopted it as a
fundamental objective. (Bouchard to the UN,
23 October 1989)
Bouchard in his speech also noted the creation by
the federal government of a "Winnipeg Centre
for the
Promotion of Sustainable Development".
Various provincial governments in their respective
provinces have established "task forces" or
"round tables"
to promote sustainable development. Nova Scotia has a "Round Table on
the
Environment
and the Economy", of which Susan Holtz is a member. An environmental
award has now
been
established by the provincial government "for projects supporting
sustainable development,
judged by the
Nova Scotia Round Table on Environment and Economy".
Business
The Report on
Business magazine, published by the Globe and Mail (July 1989), spoke
of the
"remarkable success" of the concept of sustainable development. The
enthusiasm of business
is, in part because they have
finally discovered a form of environmentalism they can live with. It is
known as sustainable development.
(Page 44)
The business magazine quotes, with approval, Colin
Isaacs, then with Pollution Probe: Brundtland says
you can have all the growth you want as long as it doesn't destroy the
biosphere. (Page 44)
Roy Aitken of INCO – one
of the keynote speakers at
the Halifax conference – is
quoted
in the same
article "The
Greening of the Boardroom" as saying: I give a great deal of credit to
Brundtland for creating an intellectual climate in which industry
could move ... (Page 44)
Aitken, the spokesperson for the biggest sulfur
dioxide polluter in Canada, went on to make the
arrogant claim
in a CBC national radio program (Sunday
Morning, 29 October 1989) that only industry
can solve the
problems of environmental pollution!
After the Halifax conference on sustainable
development, a story in the New Glasgow Evening News
(18 October
1989) spoke of the "unabashed
enthusiasm"
for the concept of sustainable development by the
largest pulp
and paper mill in the province. Stora president Tom Hall, whose company
was one of the
conference
sponsors, emphasized that the concept has already had an impact on his
pulp and paper
company. Stora
has a worldwide policy that calls for company operations to be carried
out
in such a way that we do not damage or endanger the environment for the world of the
future and the new generation whose home it will be.
In Nova Scotia, Stora Forest Industries
(Swedish-owned) has been under continual attack by
environmentalists working on forestry/pesticide issues for its
ecologically destructive pulpwood forestry
policy and
pulp and paper mill emissions. Stora has been unique, so far, among
pulp mills in the province
for
threatening its critics on several occasions with legal suits. These
threats seem to many to be an
attempt to
silence the criticism through the use of legal intimidation.
Labour
The Canadian Labour Congress Environment Committee
has produced a 25-page document called The Basis for a National Environmental
Policy (April 1989) in which sustainable development is
supported: National
environmental policy should, as far as feasible, be compatible with
controlled economic
growth, sustainable development,
the creation of wealth, and full employment. (Page 1)
The growth orientation of the basically
human-centered policy contradicts the number of progressive
measures, e.g.
zero emission of pollutants and rejection of risk-benefit analysis,
which are advocated.
The policy
supports pesticide use (page 13) and rallies behind the chemical
industry: A flourishing
Canadian chemical industry and the employment it generates can be
compatible
with effective environmental
protection. Most chemicals can be produced and used without harm
to health or the
environment. Even some of the smaller number of chemicals which may be
harmful in some circumstances can
be handled safely. (Page 16)
Significantly, the CLC policy makes it apparent that
there is to be no transfer of productive wealth
from Canada to
the industrially underdeveloped countries: What is quite
clear is that "sustainable development", in the sense that broad
Canadian levels
of development are spread
throughout the world, is impossible. (Page 14)
It is clear that the CLC sees itself working with
the social democratic New Democratic Party of Canada
(page 5).
It might be noted here that Ed Broadbent, former
national leader of the NDP, pledged party support for
sustainable
development and the Brundtland Report
at a farewell speech in Winnipeg
on 30 November 1989.
Broadbent said
this support illustrated his party's commitment to the importance of
the environment. He
spoke
glowingly of the social democratic affiliation of Ms. Gro Brundtland,
the Norwegian chairperson of
the
Commission. Broadbent of course did not allude to the notorious
practices of Norway, which has been
a major player
in the killing of whales and harp and hooded seals by considering them
merely as
"resources"
for human use.
An important union in Nova Scotia is the Steel
Workers' Union. A Policy Paper on the
Environment
from the
United Steelworkers of America (April 1989) supported the Brundtland Report and the concept of
sustainable
development. The policy paper states that the UN Report: opens the door to
working people to play a role in the environmental revolution by
debunking
the often-posed dilemma of the
conflict between growth or development or jobs on one hand
and environmental quality on the
other. It changes the focus of the debate by introducing the idea
of sustainable growth.
(Page 1)
The paper goes on to say: The International
Metalworkers Federation, of which our union in Canada is a member, has
also
identified metalworkers clearly
with the fight for sustainable growth. (Page 2)
We have earlier noted in this Bulletin the support
for sustainable development expressed by the New
Brunswick
Federation of Labour in collaboration with the Conservation Council of
New Brunswick.
The Green Web, like many others in the environmental
and green movements, believes that it is
necessary to
try to work closely with workers and link common concerns, e.g.
occupational health issues at
work places
and environmental degradation from polluting plant emissions. But we
must not deny the real
conflicts of
interest. Workers, because of where they often live - in proximity to
polluting industries - are
normally the
first to feel the effects of pollution. Thus workers often suffer a
double exposure to toxic
contaminants,
at work and in their community. Yet basically their unions have become
integrated into
the capitalist
social order. Also, the social base of the environmental and embryonic
green movements
in Canada are
not "proletarian", and many of the environmental and green issues are
not traditional
working class
issues. In West Germany, Die Grünen (the federal green party)
collectively define
themselves as
a left party and their policies are far more radical than those of the
social democrats.
However, the
social base of the West German social democrats is the traditional
working class.
As well as the obvious commitment to economic growth
shown above, our experience is that unions
are often
reactionary on environmental and wildlife issues, where the issue is
seen as affecting in some
way the
economic interests of union members. The positions of immediately
involved unions on asbestos,
the cutting of
old growth forests on the West Coast, and here in Nova Scotia on forest
management/
pesticides/pulp and paper mill emissions, the killing of seals,
"defence", etc. are obvious examples. The
union voice is
essentially the same as that of the employers and the government.
The Green Web has come to see that a crucial gauge
of the level of "green" consciousness is whether
or not groups
or individuals would oppose their own economic interests for
environmental concerns. We
believe that
there are vast changes needed for everyone to live in an ecologically
nondestructive manner.
Replacement
jobs cannot be guaranteed to anyone before shutting down operations
that are ecologically
destructive.
But serious attention has to be paid to green economics and how
livelihoods will be obtained
in a green,
ecologically sustainable economy.
Environmentalists and Greens
We have already indicated the support extended to
sustainable development by some environmental
groups in Nova
Scotia and New Brunswick. Similar support was also manifested by some
Newfoundland
environmentalists at a "Symposium on the
Environment" held in Corner Brook, 9-11 July 1989. A
Newfoundland
and Labrador "Conservation
Strategy Committee" has been established to set forth
a "blueprint"
for sustainable development. And support for sustainable development
has generally extended
right across
the country. This well reflects the confusion on theoretical matters in
the movement.
Jim Bohlen, who was one of the co-founders of
Greenpeace and played an instrumental role in founding
the British
Columbia Green Party and the federal Green Party, wrote a flattering
review of Our Common
Future
in the Fall 1987 issue of The New
Catalyst, a British Columbia green movement publication: Our
Common Future should
be in every Green activist's library if not on the bedside table.
It is a guidebook for planetary
survival that rationalizes Green politics.
Another early review that was very positive and
noncritical of the Brundtland Report
was by Rafal
Serafin, in
the Canadian academic environmental journal Alternatives. (See Dec/Jan 1987/88,
Vol. 15 No. 1)
But as time has passed, we have seen a number of
critical assessments of the Brundtland
Report in
Canadian
journals like The New Catalyst,
The Trumpeter, Canadian Dimension, and Alternatives.
However, we
have not yet seen any critical evaluation of Our Common Future in Green Party News,
the
publication of the British Columbia Green Party.
Despite a growing critique of sustainable
development, we have seen that some environmentalists and
greens do not
seem to hesitate to give their support. A recent example outside of the
Maritimes is that of
Nick Ternette.
Ternette, who has presented himself as a green socialist in various
publications, recently
ran as a green
candidate for mayor of Winnipeg under the banner of "Alternative ...The
Greens". His
literature
expressed support for sustainable development:
Development expressing an
ecological vision of life in the future guided by principles
and technologies of sustainable development.
Why Some Environmentalists and
Greens Support Sustainable Development
These are some of the reasons it seems to us why
sustainable development has enjoyed some
support from
environmentalists and greens:
- A genuine belief that the Brundtland Report
is a big step forward for the environmental/green
movements.
This amounts to a selective reading, where the data on environmental
degradation and
poverty is
emphasized, and the growth economics and "resource" orientation of the
Report is
ignored or
downplayed. This point of view says that given the Brundtland Report's
endorsement of
sustainable
development, activists can now point out some particular environmental
atrocity and
say, "This is
not sustainable development". However, environmentalists are thereby
accepting a
"development"
framework for discussion. Most importantly, for people with power, such
as
corporations
and governments, it is not a matter of intellectual persuasion.
Corporations and
governments
will very seldom be persuaded or publicly admit that what they are
doing or
sanctioning
are not examples of sustainable development.
- A belief that taking part in a "forum" with
business and government (and perhaps labour)
at least gives
an opportunity to have an environmental view publicly expressed. People
with such
a position
have told us that taking part in such forums doesn't allow the other
side to have its own
way completely.
- A belief in the necessity to work together
with governments and business, that "this is the
only realistic
way." The implicit (sometimes explicit) belief here is that capitalism
can be made
ecologically
responsible. We believe that environmental organizations which have
actively solicited
government and
corporate funds throughout their existence and worked with various
government
departments on
"reforms" of this bit of legislation/regulation or that (e.g. pesticide
regulations in
Nova Scotia)
find it quite natural to get on board with business and government to
promote
sustainable
development. Thus a fundraising letter of November 1989 by Lois Corbett
and Cristina
Pekarik of the
Ecology Action Centre to members and supporters notes that this
organization is
"representing concerned
citizens on the federal and Nova Scotia Round Tables on the
Environment
and Economy."
Appeal to Environmentalists and
Greens
We should not support sustainable development. This
concept provides the ideological cover or
legitimization
for greatly expanded economic growth, hence expanded or accelerated
environmental
destruction.
As has been said, sustainable development is all about sustaining
development.
Environmentalists and greens should understand this and not remain
indifferent and on the sidelines
in the public
debate now underway. It is an important debate which concerns the
future of the planet.
At the same time, we appeal to environmentalists,
greens, and the concerned public not to join
with industry,
governments, and labour unions in promoting sustainable development.
The experience of
activists who
have worked over the years on a number of environmental issues in Nova
Scotia should
demonstrate
that economic development is paramount, and that concern by the
government or industry
for the
environment and for public participation is a smoke-screen. Sometimes,
through a major public
mobilization,
some spraying permit might be cancelled or an aquaculture lease
terminated, but these are
the exceptions.
Sustainable development will not change the policy
of approving most applications to exploit the
"resources" of
Nova Scotia. Why should the Nova Scotia Department of the Environment,
the leading
approval
agency in all this and the organizer of the Halifax conference on
sustainable development,
have suddenly
changed its spots?
An influential book which appeared in 1972, The Limits to Growth, from
"The Club of Rome",
makes the Brundtland Report seem a giant step
backwards. This earlier
publication, while still
human-centered, put forward the position that in a finite world there
must be limits to growth; that we
should stop
equating growth with "progress"; and that we should look to a world
model of a
nongrowing
state of global equilibrium, where population and capital are
essentially stable. Thus The Limits to Growth, unlike Our Common Future, advocates a
nongrowth economy. For the Brundtland Report, there are no
limits to economic growth and growth is equated with
progress.
A New Vision of
Sustainability
We ask environmentalists and greens to face up to
the necessity of putting forth an alternative
ecological
vision to that offered by sustainable development. This vision has to
offer a way forward
which responds
to the public's deepening concern about the growing destruction of the
Earth and
the need for
decisive action. It means having a tool for organizing against the
provincial and federal
promotion of
sustainable development.
The old ways of gearing up each year for the endless
piecemeal battles over particular
environmental
issues are no longer sufficient. In the forestry sector, for example,
the environmental war
is being lost.
While there is a growth in public awareness, each year there is more
clear-cutting, more
destruction of
hardwoods, more spraying, more destruction of wildlife habitats, more
demand for pulp
fibre. The
Nova Scotia government proudly boasts of its "sustainable" forestry, as
shown by the 4 million
softwood
seedlings planted by the province in 1978, 30 million in 1988, and a
projected 60 million in
1998.
This pulpwood forestry program also has an
"educational" side, one particularly directed at the young.
Hence the
various forest industry promoted school programs like "Project Learning
Tree" for teachers
and students
from primary through grade 12, and recently the opening of what is
officially called a
"dual-purpose
forest nursery and education centre" in the Musquodoboit Valley in
September 1989.
Reactionary newspapers like The Chronicle Herald suddenly have
"green" columnists
dispensing
environmental advice. The Dalhousie School for Resource and
Environmental Studies,
which
essentially trains "resource managers" and which has provided faculty
to justify forest
herbicide
spraying, now also writes an "Environmentally
Speaking" column for the Herald!
If
environmental activists are to avoid being swallowed alive by the green
merchants of
business-as-usual, then it is necessary to become more theoretically
conscious and to project
this new
consciousness to the public at large. Each of us has to face the new
realities or history
will pass us
by.
Toward a New Green
Consciousness
The following points are offered by the Green Web as
a contribution to a needed theoretical
discussion
among environmentalists and green-thinking activists. We realize
that others will have
different
ideas, but let us get the discussion underway and break the theoretical
monopoly of the
advocates of
sustainable development:
- Reject resourcism and advocate and adopt a
biocentric or life-centered philosophy: We have
shown in this
Bulletin that resourcism is the perspective of the Brundtland Report.
It is also the
dominant
perspective in our society shaping how we look at the natural world. A
biocentric
viewpoint sees
the human species as one among billions of other life forms on the
planet. Humans
have no
special privileges or "rights" to dominate or eliminate other
life forms. The rights of seals,
cormorants,
and coyotes are on an equal footing with human interests.
The preservation of the ecology is the first
consideration, not one among several factors, when
deciding for
example whether or not to build a coal-fired generating station like
the Point Aconi
power plant in
Cape Breton or expand a pulp and paper mill. Such preservation means
placing
any local
situation in a global context. Biocentrism means a position of zero
discharge (total
containment)
for all industrial pollutants. It means outlawing the strategy of
"legal" toxic
discharges
which, as we have found out, has contaminated our planet.
- Accept that capitalist
industrialism as an economic system is anti-ecological: This system
is based on
the growth of capital and necessarily promotes mindless consumerism as
a part of
this growth.
The continual expansion of the individual corporation – for
instance
Stora or Scott
or Bowater in
the forestry sector in Nova Scotia –
makes individual corporate
economic sense.
But it makes
no sense ecologically or socially, taking the total picture into
consideration. The
government or
the business class will never be convinced, no matter what
evidence we muster,
that pulpwood
forestry is destroying our environment for all living things. The
Green Web
recognizes
that countries presently calling themselves socialist or
communist have also destroyed
their
environments through their own forms of industrialism. However we do
not believe that
"growth" has
to be intrinsic to socialism.
- Start consciously building a grassroots green
political movement in Nova Scotia: Such a
movement will
also establish links with greens across Canada and around the world.
Through
discussions
and debates within this green movement we must put forward a
theoretical alternative
to the
nonsustainable practices in forestry, the fishery, agriculture, the
energy sector, and so on.
We have to
start projecting guidelines for an alternative economic model. How do
we organize
green
sustainable economic activity for Nova Scotia, Canada, and the world?
The human side
of the greens
needs to stress such ideas as:
*
grassroots
democracy
*
putting
collective interests ahead of individual interests
*
decentralization of productive industry
* local
control of economic activity;
* population
reduction
* space and
respect for all life forms
* reducing
consumption
* recycling
* simpler,
ecologically sustainable ways of life
We also need to discuss how to go about cancelling
Third World debts; how to transfer
productive
wealth to people in have-not countries; and how to develop a world
consciousness
in every
individual. All this adds up to the necessity for a new green ethics, a
new morality.
Ecological
sustainability, not economic growth, has to become the goal of society.
We hope
for the input
from green and environmental activists everywhere in developing a
life-centered
vision, one
which will stand as a clear alternative to sustainable development.
David Orton
February, 1990
To obtain any of the Green Web publications,
write to us at:
Green Web, R.R. #3, Saltsprings, Nova Scotia, Canada, BOK 1PO E-mail us at: greenweb@ca.inter.net