Uneven Development and Northern Imperialism in the making of Today's Ecological Crisis

[+Green Blog]

What is equality and development? And what kind of influence has the environment on both of these relations? For me, environmentalism has always been about caring about the well-state and equality of everyone and everything...

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[Simon]

Please take a moment to read this blog post. :)

[brettbh]

>>Uneven Development and Northern Imperialism in the making of Today’s Ecological Crisis<<

Should that read, "Uneven Development and Northern Imperialism IS the making of Today’s Ecological Crisis"?

This

>>An average person living in Great Britain will in only 11 days emit as much CO2 as an average person in Bangladesh will during a whole year.<<

And

>>Al Gore said, during the annual World Economic Forum Meeting in 2008, that you can’t solve climate change or poverty in the developing world “without dealing with the otherâ€<<

Could be said to be somewhat contradictory. Were we to create global equality, Bangladeshis would be using as much energy as Brits - and that certainly wouldn't help the climate crisis. Or maybe the solution is to force more people into poverty?

Capitalism is not the cause of our environmental problems - no matter what economic model were to be adopted, we'd still be driving cars and burning coal to meet our energy needs. That said, capitalism does act as an obstacle to our being able to find a solution to our problems. As I have said previously, we need to start doing what's best for the environment and not what's best for the budget - and that's in direct opposition to capitalism.

>>And I don’t believe that if we reject our modern world we can reach ecological harmony.<<

What do you mean by "ecological harmony." Zero impact? Preserving that status quo? There really is no such a thing as ecological harmony. Each and every species changes and contributes to its surrounding environment - and man is no different (except for the fact that he has a bigger impact!). We have - and shall continue to - impact our surroundings and impact other species. Woodland will be cleared to make way for new cities and agriculture. Solar, wind and hydro energy production shall impact surrounding ecosystems. Some species shall increase in number, some shall decline and some shall become extinct. This is an absolutely inevitability. There is no way that 6.7 billion people - and 1.5 million more each week - can be on the planet without substantially impacting the environment.