Capitalism's Allure called 'Sinister' By Environmentalist

www.cnsnews.com ^ | August 30, 2002 | Marc Morano

[Tailgunner Joe]

A Green leader here called the allure of free market capitalism "sinister" and referred to economic growth as "the engine of [environmental] degradation."

Fred Edwards, a board member of Friends of the Earth Scotland, told CNSNews.com that the U.S. and Europe must "start talking less about immediate gratification and...not worship economic growth as we do."

Edwards made his comments Thursday at the "People's Earth Summit," a parallel event to the U.N.'s Summit on Sustainable Development (Earth summit).

When asked if the developing world should emulate the U.S. and western Europe's economic structure, Edwards was emphatic: "They certainly shouldn't," he said.

"The difficulty is superficially it looks so attractive, and in the short term of course it is, that is what is so sinister about neo-liberal economics," Edwards explained.

Edwards believes that growth and development was earth-friendly until about 1900.

"We are living off our natural capital," he said. "It was okay when growth was on such a slow scale, but look at what has happened in the last 100 years," he said.

Edwards would like to see the western world reduce its growth, or at the very least stabilize its standard of living. "Start at least attacking it from the edges...I would like to take a full-frontal approach," he said.

He favors "greater taxation for those who can afford it" and says he is willing to pay his part. "I can afford it, I am quite willing to pay more income tax."

Edwards praised the U.S. for it's "diversity," and he said he hoped that "soon some of that will prevail against the Bush administration."

Bjorn Lomborg, the Danish author of The Skeptical Environmentalist, dismissed Edward's comments.

"Experience tells us otherwise - most environments get better when you develop," Lomborg told CNSNews.com .

Lomborg believes that much of the Greens' concern about the Earth's natural environment has no scientific basis, and he said the developing world's poor don't have the same luxury as westerners do to worry about every possible environmental concern.

"Let's let the Third World get rich, so they can then worry about their environment," Lomborg said.

Promotion of abortion rights

The New York based Catholic Family & Human Rights Institure (CFAM) decried the "promotion of abortion rights" at the earth summit.

The controversy centers around a paragraph referring to "basic health services" in a U.N. financial aid document.

According to CFAM, the United Kingdom delegates are trying to rework the paragraph "with the particular intention of introducing abortion rights into the text."

The sticking point is that "basic health services" are presently defined in the document as services "consistent with national laws and cultural and religious values."

CFAM says the language as it currently reads is upsetting abortion rights advocates because, "They worry that any reference to national laws and customs renders it impossible to set new international norms for reproductive rights."

[avenir]

"I can afford it, I am quite willing to pay more income tax"

...he says with glass of Cristal in hand, lobster claw dangling from mouth.