Excellent publication read at :
Google Alert for desertification
http://opinion.inquirer.net/viewpoints/columns/view_article.php?article_id=101459
AFTERTHOUGHTS
The environmental movement in the global South
The pivotal agent in fight against global warming?
The mid-December summit in Bali to negotiate a new agreement to succeed the Kyoto Protocol is shaping up to be one of the most decisive events of this generation. The question on everyone’s lips is what kind of bargain the developed North and the developing South will strike to deal with the massive threat posed by climate change.
The developing world’s stance towards the question of the environment has often been equated with the pugnacious comments of former Malaysian Prime Minister Mohamad Mahathir, such as his famous lines at the Rio Conference on the Environment and Development in June 1992:
“When the rich chopped down their own forests, built their poison-belching factories and scoured the world for cheap resources, the poor said nothing. Indeed they paid for the development of the rich. Now the rich claim a right to regulate the development of the poor countries…As colonies we were exploited. Now as independent nations we are to be equally exploited.”
Mahathir has been interpreted in the North as speaking for a South that seeks to catch up whatever the cost and where the environmental movement is weak or non-existent. Today, China is seen as the prime exemplar of this Mahathirian obsession with rapid industrialization with minimal regard for the environment.
This view of the South’s perspective on the environment is a caricature. In fact, the environmental costs of rapid industrialization are of major concern to significant sectors of the population of developing countries, and in many of them the environmental movement has been a significant actor. Moreover, there is currently an active discussion in many countries of alternatives to the destabilizing high-growth model. In the following talk, I focus on the environmental movement in Asia. However, many of the same trends can be observed in Latin America, Africa, and other parts of the global South.
Emergence of the environmental movement in NICs
(continued) ……………….
Environmental struggles in Southeast Asia
……………………
Environmental protests in China
………………….
The environmental movement in India
…………………..
National elites and Third Worldism
………………….
The need for global adjustment
…………………….
As in North, the environmental movements in the South have seen their ebbs and flows. It appears that, as with all social movements, it takes a particular conjunction of circumstances to bring an environmental movement to life after being quiescent for some time or to transform diverse local struggles into one nationwide movement. The challenge facing activists in the global North and the global South is to discover or bring about those circumstances that will trigger the formation of a global mass movement that will decisively confront the most crucial challenge of our times.
Walden Bellow is Distinguished Visiting Professor of International Development Studies at St. Mary’s University, Halifax, Canada; Professor of Sociology at the University of the Philippines, Diliman; and senior analyst and former executive director of Focus on the Global South, Bangkok, Thailand.
RELATED STORIES:
- DENR in wrong hands
- Asian countries cautiously promote nuclear power
- New WTO accord could encourage clean energy use
OTHER STORIES:
- The environmental movement in the global South
- Sad and enraged
- Sacred Moon, Flying Crab
- What is our tomorrow?
- The quadrant of corruption
- The cover-up of the Glorietta blast
- Ascetic ideologue, seductive actress
- Making sense of the surveys
- Prophetic Davide (Part 1)
COLUMNS:
- Afterthoughts : The environmental movement in the global South / Walden Bello
- Glimpses : Sad and enraged / Jose Ma. Montelibano
- Mixed Media : Sacred Moon, Flying Crab / Sylvia L. Mayuga
- Glimpses : What is our tomorrow? / Jose Ma. Montelibano
- Mixed Media : Farewell, October / Sylvia L. Mayuga
- Glimpses : The quadrant of corruption / Jose Ma. Montelibano
- Mixed Media : Hungry Enough to Devour a President / Sylvia L. Mayuga
Posted in Climate / climate change, Ecology - environment
