EDWARD GOLDSMITH

Let us face it, there is no law in any country - to my knowledge - that makes it illegal to clear-cut forests, nor to erode our topsoil, nor to generate greenhouse gases over and above that which can be absorbed by dwindling natural sinks. What is more, even if such laws were enacted, I can see no effective mechanism anywhere in the world for applying them.

Whenever a Third World country accepts a structural adjustment loan and hence the imposition of a structural adjustment program, it has in effect delegated the task of running its economy to a foreign, non-elected body sitting in Washington DC.

Development involves methodically destroying the real world or the world of living things in order to substitute in its stead a totally different world; the surrogate world or world of human artifacts—that which most favors the maximization of GNP

We define poverty as a shortage of material goods, which justifies the production of more and more material goods. It does not occur to us that it might be more realistic to regard it as an aberrant situation in which more material goods are required than can actually be produced, for then the solution would be to create those socio-economic conditions in which less goods rather than more were required.

It may not be irrelevant to note that even very modest forms of life, like earthworms, dung beetles and fiddler crabs, have no trouble identifying the real problems they must deal with if they are to survive.

We define poverty as a shortage of material goods, which justifies the production of more and more material goods. It does not occur to us that it might be more realistic to regard it as an aberrant situation in which more material goods are required than can actually be produced, for then the solution would be to create those socio-economic conditions in which less goods rather than more were required.

Let us face it, there is no law in any country - to my knowledge - that makes it illegal to clear-cut forests, nor to erode our topsoil, nor to generate greenhouse gases over and above that which can be absorbed by dwindling natural sinks. What is more, even if such laws were enacted, I can see no effective mechanism anywhere in the world for applying them.

Whenever a Third World country accepts a structural adjustment loan and hence the imposition of a structural adjustment program, it has in effect delegated the task of running its economy to a foreign, non-elected body sitting in Washington DC.

Development involves methodically destroying the real world or the world of living things in order to substitute in its stead a totally different world; the surrogate world or world of human artifacts—that which most favors the maximization of GNP

It may not be irrelevant to note that even very modest forms of life, like earthworms, dung beetles and fiddler crabs, have no trouble identifying the real problems they must deal with if they are to survive.