Dude! They're all around you!
Posted on 09/09/2002 4:03:23 AM PDT by kattracks
Johannesburg (CNSNews.com) - One of participants at the "People's Earth Summit," a parallel (protest) event to last week's United Nation's-sponsored Earth summit, said, "If anyone in a developing country looks to the U.S. and wants a lifestyle like the average American--it's total bull---t!"
Paula Snyder, an American who is traveling around the developing world to promote various Green causes, told CNSNews.com , "Greed is the enemy - the underlying problem is greed, and that leads into most of the problems with the ecological system and the political system."
The People's Earth Summit was held at St. Stithians College near the U.N.'s main summit site in Johannesburg.
"We're going to need 16 more planets if everyone aspires to be like an average American," Snyder added.
'Social change project'
Snyder is traveling throughout the developing world as part of her "social change project," sponsored in part by the Earth Island Institute and Patch Adams, the famed doctor, known for his social activism and irreverent style.
Snyder said she has learned through her travels that residents of the world's poorer nations only think they want to emulate America.
"They want what we have -- but they don't realize how ugly it is," Snyder said.
Snyder implored her fellow Americans to "stop using so much...stop driving everywhere or carpool, stop wearing clothes that have brand names on them, stop using paper napkins for everything, stop using paper cups, carry your own travel mug, read Julia 'Butterfly' Hill's book, One Makes a Difference . It's the little things that really do make change." Hill is the young woman who lived in a California redwood tree for two years to protest logging practices.
"I wish I could make a total redistribution [of wealth]," Snyder said. "Things are going to change. They have to," she added.
"A lot to learn"
Katie Silberman told CNSNews.com , "I think the developing world has a lot of lessons for us as Americans in terms of limiting our consumption and reducing our waste."
Silberman is from the Oakland-based Center for Environmental Health, the group that led the heckling of Secretary of State Colin Powell during his address last week at the Earth Summit. (see story: American Environmentalist: 'I'm Ashamed For My Country')
"The American way of life at this point is so overblown in terms of materialism and consumption," Silberman explained. "We actually have a lot to learn from the Southern Hemisphere in terms of community health," she added.
Silberman cautioned against too much growth in the developing world. "We live on this one small planet and it only has a certain carrying capacity," she said.b?
'The natural way'
Eleven-year-old Akshit Batra, an Indian representative of the "Children's Earth Summit," said "greed of the people" is destroying the earth.
"People are very corrupt, they are not worried about the environment, they are not worried about the next generation," Batra said.
He said U.S. citizens "should try to change their lifestyle according to the natural way and farmers should decrease the use of pesticides."
'Ecological debt'
Richard Navarro, the chairman of Friends of the Earth International (FoEi) spoke at a People's Earth Summit conferences entitled, "Earth Democracy: Your Earth Rights."
FoEi played a prominent role in the main summit, and Navarro was sharply critical of the summit's final outcome. He said the world gathering was "hijacked by free market ideology, by a backward-looking, insular and ignorant U.S...."
Navarro's speech to the "People's Earth Summit" focused on the "ecological debt" owed by the industrialized "North to the [developing] South" for the North's pollution and consumption habits.
"How can a person on this planet have more right than others to consume more?" asked Navarro.
According to Navarro, men also owe the women a "debt" for gender bias, and he spoke of the debt that a "white person has with colored persons and indigenous peoples" because of racial discrimination.
In fact, all of mankind has "a debt from our species to the rest of nature," according to Navarro.
"Other species take from nature only what they need to survive," he stated. "Which other species has the capacity to destroy the earth?" Navarro asked.
Navarro said that the September 11th terrorist attacks on the U.S. were a tragic criminal act, but he noted, "That very same day, there were 7,000 people dying of diseases related to water [sanitation]. Isn't that also a crime?"
'New equality'
Herbert Girardet, chairman of the British-based Schumacher Society, said he was unhappy with the main Earth Summit because it was reduced to the "lowest common denominator - in other words, what the Americans think is okay."
Girardet said the agenda of the People's Summit was not to look at "what is possible, but what is necessary."
"The Earth is in such a profound sense of emergency" and "we must create a new equality between human life and the natural world," explained Giradet.
People at the People's Earth Summit waved posters reading, "Earth Spirituality"; "Free Trade Means Famine"; and an anti-genetically-modified-food poster reading, "Seed to Bread, Farmer to Farmer."
E-mail a news tip to Marc Morano.
Send a Letter to the Editor about this article.
Yeah, in reality they want to continue to live in hovels and starve to death.
Wunder whut Paula looks like...
prisoner6
Jeez, is it up to 16 now? It started off, about six months ago, as one additional planet ... then, just before the HotAir Conference in Jo'burg it became three .... <
Now it's 16? All right, admit it ... which one of you out there is hoarding planets! This inflation has to stop ... quit hiding planets under your mattress!
Please allow me to fix what was obviously an editorial error:
"Average Environmentalist Called "Total Bull---t" by American"
Because they know that the wheels are coming off of that little theory. Now, it's more general, so that no matter what, they can something to complain about. I think we'll see more of this. You'll see less specifics, because the truth is not on their side.
"They want what we have -- but they don't realize how ugly it is," Snyder said.
Yes, the rampant disease, poverty, famine, unchecked ecological ruin, and often violent political repression rife in the third world are so much more politically pure, so long as none of that spiritually corrupting capitalist cash is driving it.
Well at least she probably won't have any children (hopefully not through abortion)
Dude! They're all around you!
We might note that these jerks were within ten miles of people who have no clean water to drink or food to eat. Yet, they did not bother to take any of those sickly little children a glass of fresh water or a sandwich.
Quite obviously, these sumbags have plenty of money to fly over there and stay at fancy hotels. But, they do not care enough to spend ten bucks to help some hungry children.
Evidently, caring is not their primary agenda. Socialism is.
Sure she does, then she wouldn't have to work like most of us BULLsh*t Average Americans - she could just live off our backs, if she doesn't already. What a steamin' pantload of crap!
This is the only true statement in this article.
See where she is going. Next thing the envirocommies will try to take away paper for writing. Soon free thought itself will be deemed dangerous to mother earth.
No, stupidity and the need to control others is.
The "invisible hand" of enlightened self-interest is still the most powerful weapon wielded by civilized man, and no amount of foaming rhetoric by the neurotic will ever change that.
We have not just gone through a couple of hundred years of the greatest burst of human ingenuity inventiveness and creativity, politically as well as scientifically, to hand things over to the insane... or have we?
Ok, now I gotta ask.
1) How is she traveling? Surely not in an "evil jet" and certainly not first class,right?
2)She didn't mention toilet paper (maybe I should have left that one out...)
3)travel mugs are made of plastic, right? and books are made of paper? She's promoting them.. you heard her : )
Silberman is from the Oakland-based Center for Environmental Health, the group that led the heckling of Secretary of State Colin Powell during his address last week at the Earth Summit.
Snyder implored her fellow Americans to “stop using so much...stop driving everywhere or carpool, stop wearing clothes that have brand names on them, stop using paper napkins for everything, stop using paper cups, carry your own travel mug, read Julia ‘Butterfly’ Hill’s book, One Makes a Difference . It’s the little things that really do make change.” .... Snyder is traveling throughout the developing world as part of her “social change project” ...
Listen, you and your fellow globe-trotting pests should STOP burning up aviation fuel.
You could have started by sharing some of that steak and lobster you are feasting on with some of the poor starving children down the street.
She knows, better than the people themselves, what they really want. Therefore, she and her fellow petty dictators have the "right" to tell the world what to do. And she claims the problem of the West is "greed." Does she think that the Robert Mugabes of this world are murdering, lying, thieving thugs out of the "goodness of their hearts"? Could "greed" be present among dictators? Your average African dictator makes Ken Lay of Enron look like a boy scout. (Actually, let's not restrict that to Africa. Arafat's stolen and stashed away about $1.3 billion. That sounds a tad -- what is the word -- greedy?
Congressman Billybob
Click for major article on turnover in the House of Representatives: "Til Death Do Us Part."
Wash that down by lapping up some tepid river and you got some mighty-good eatin!
And please....I already understand that trying to explain the statements of these wackos is a nearly fruitless venture. I'm just trying to figure out what this one has against brand-name clothing.
Can we say "spacey, clueless, needs a good xxxxxxing, squirrel-faced little broad?
Good Lord, DON'T let this type breed!
prisoner6
Any chance she will volunteer to evacuate?
"How can a person on this planet have more right than others to consume more?" asked Navarro."
It's called survival of the fittest fellow, now go get in your hovel, walk on your knuckles I've decided your not allowed to walk upright, there's a height restriction, one man is not allowed to be taller than another.
1) I wish I could make a total redistribution [of wealth]," Snyder said. "Things are going to change. They have to,"...
2) (see story: American Environmentalist: 'I'm Ashamed For My Country')
3) Navarro's speech to the "People's Earth Summit" focused on the "ecological debt" owed by the industrialized "North to the [developing] South" for the North's pollution and consumption habits.
4) According to Navarro, men also owe the women a "debt" for gender bias, and he spoke of the debt that a "white person has with colored persons and indigenous peoples" because of racial discrimination
If you speak to these people eventually you get to the heart of their agenda. They don't care about the environment, if they did they'd see that the US in particular is light years ahead of any third world cesspool in terms of cleaning up environmental damage. A casual comparison of the Mississippi and the Ganges rivers will show that.
"Earth Island Institute, founded by environmental leader David Brower, "covers the waterfront" on environmental issues worldwide. One of its signal victories was making tuna dolphin-safe, and their mark reminds people of that achievement while characterizing the intelligence and fleetness of the group."
So transparent. Snyder's just trying to get somebody else to pay to develop HIS planet.
Wonder if Akshit is related to the aforementioned "Bullsh*t".
Aw, what the heck, let's make it an even 20, just to be on the safe side.
I'm still trying to figure that one out myself. I think it's directed at either the idea that all this mass-market stuff (like Hillfiger and Polo) which is so popular with the 'urban class' is mass-produced in third world sweat shops by those evil resource-raping capitalist pig-dog corporations. It might also have something to do with driving the need for consumer status symbols--if we didn't hold these up as desirable items, the sheeple wouldn't want them.
God, where would we be without these enlightened liberal academics (especially the over-indulged twenty-something liberal spawn)...They're so much more 'enlightened' than you or I...</extreme sarcasm>
Well, I drive almost nowhere, and when I do, I carpool. One!
stop wearing clothes that have brand names on them,
Though I haven't checked, I'm sure all the brand names on my clothing are sufficiently low class. Probably assembled in third world sweat shops, too, providing citizens of developing nations with wages they could not otherwise receive. Two!
stop using paper napkins for everything,
I don't use them for everything. Three!
stop using paper cups,
I don't use paper cups. Four!
carry your own travel mug,
I did, until I accidentally left it in another's vehicle. Plan on buying another before I travel anywhere. Five!
read Julia 'Butterfly' Hill's book, One Makes a Difference.
Why?
Okay, that's five out of six. Does that mean my lifestyle bs quotient is at an acceptable level? Or do I have to read that dang book first? If not, then I can say that being an environmentalist is easy.
Dang! All my wealth has gone into guns. Of course she can come around and collect them. :)
Come get it.
Proof positive these people have never worked a day in their life, have been spoiled rotten to the point of a bona-fide neurosis, not to mention brainwashed at taxpayer expense via our public educational system.
Things are going to change, but not the way you think, the time for your nonsense has passed and gone away, thankfully.
She probably means that our clothing should be manufactured by noble Arizona native-Americans on primitive looms, and by northeastern liberal ladies on spinning wheels.
All clothing should be biodegradable and recyclable. Washing instruction labels would be blank so that soap won't pollute the waterways when the outfits turn into old crusties.
In fact, the ideal clothing for these whackos would be a couple of strategically-placed fig leafs so that we can all get back to the natural conditions of the Garden of Eden.
Leni
Mostly I think they'd settle for clean water and enough to eat, at least for starters.
Just shows how ignorant these people are.
What they see as "greed" is the basic human nature to try to advance ourselves and increase our standard of living. "Greed" alone does not accomplish this - hard work, and the exceeding efficiency generated by a free capitalist society are what increases the standard of living for everyone.
Capitalism may use the "most" resources, but it also is the engine for the most efficient use of resources.
I need further statistics on this, but -
that old saw about "America is 5% of the world's population and uses 25% of the resources" or some such. The rest of the statistic is never quoted. America produces over 30? (need this number) percent of the world's gross output of goods and services. This points to the overwhelming efficiency of the free capitalistic system that is the engine of liberty and standard of living.
I need numbers for other countries - how much of the world's resources do they use to produce what reduced amount of the world's output?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
