Our World, our hope, our World, our life, our World, our vocation, our World, our mission and our World, our future. What’s more – it needs an attention!

The issue at stake stipulates that in every minute that ticks on the clock, a wake of extinction is left behind by every human activity right on this planet. Oppressions are well represented in some regions than others, what of hunger, poverty, terminal diseases, drought, flood, protracted civil wars and many other maladies that have long defy all forms of solutions ever devised by stakeholders. Of course, it’s our world, but do we care about it? Of course, it’s our world, aren’t we rendering it useless? Of course, it’s our world, shouldn’t we be mindful of next generation’s means of livelihood? These are potential questions still begging for cogent answers. Geographers have tagged the EARTH; “water planet,” which is no gainsaying because earth is filled with lots of the stuff, say about 70% of this stuff covers the earth surface. Unfortunately, this 70% has since gone up perhaps moving towards the brink of what I called, “water deluge.” Must we continue to fold our hands and start looking as though things are normal? Of course, they are not.

Sometimes in the year 1977, the then President of the United States, Jimmy Carter, commissioned a study to examine changes in global population, natural resources and the environment to the end of the century. The end result tagged, “Global 2000 Report” was submitted in 1980. It concluded that by the year 2000:

• World population would increase by a half, the greatest growth being in less developed countries;
• The gap between the richest and the poorest – measured in terms of per capital GNP, and the consumption of food, energy and minerals – would widen;
• There would be fewer resources available – notably land, water and petroleum;
• Important life supporting ecosystems – such as forests, the atmosphere, soil and wildlife species – would be reduced;
• Prices of many of the most vital resources would increase;
• The world would be more vulnerable to natural disaster and to disruptions from human causes.

Judging from the above-stated reports it is very obvious that issues like these are still living with us till date. In fact, the World Summit on Sustainable Development, held in South Africa, discussed vividly on these issues. One will only hope that a lasting solution will come upon these teething problems, as human existence can no longer co-exist with them. The first point centers on over-population, the second on poverty, the third on over-exploitation, the fourth on extinction, the fifth on astronomical rise in prices of goods while the last talks on natural disasters and political instabilities. This is to bring to the fore that cases of these natures are prevalent in the third world countries or better put, “the world’s poorest of the poor.”

Examining these issues critically well could be found in the suggestions of the United Nations Special Session on Disarmament {UNSSD} in the year 1995; “Around one billion people live below the subsistence levels; half of the world’s population may not have access to safe drinking water, three-quarters of the developing world have no adequate sanitary facilities, at least 200 million people lack even basic shelter. To meet minimum health care needs, the developing world requires an additional 4.5 million hospital beds, half a million physicians and 3 million other health workers.” These requirements appear daunting, yet their cost is less than what the WEST spends annually on frivolities.

Really, the move by experts to stop a future earth deluge is being disrupted by the so-called “world powers” perhaps it didn’t serve their interests – what a world! The United Nations, the “mother of all think-tanks” is even helpless on vital issues that are pivotal to the liberty of poorer nations from the claws of oppression. The Security Council, an arm of the United Nations has been dominated by the United States and other powerful nations and many times, their national interests have come to be described as the “will of the international community.” One can imagine, if the WEST, with one-fifth of the world’s population compared to the third world countries one-third capacity, consumes seventy-five percent of the world’s resources and produces over sixty percent of carbon dioxide {CO2} emission coupled with environmental pollution, which seems to have negatives effects on the third, or perhaps, fourth world countries. It is indeed a notable fact that the developing countries cannot enjoy equal benefits with the WEST.

Going by the way things are in the area of the environments, which seems to be the bed-rock upon which a vital and concrete decision can be tabled in order to avert future crisis, the environmental issues almost invariably involve a degree of scientific uncertainty that complicates decision-making. We are yet to understand fully the world we came to live in, since all these “donkey years.” Of course, awareness and concern for the environment evolved in the 1800s, yet the world is still far from making a transition to an “environmentally oriented international security system.” The unfortunate part of the story is that the US, which happens to sell the idea of “environmentalism” to the entire world, is fast drifting away from its principles. Solid examples to this claim could be seen in the way and manner the US continues to oppose any linkage between the global environment and national security.

In 1991, at the First Committee of the United Nations General Assembly, the US opposed a Swedish resolution calling for an expert study of the potential uses of resources such as know-how, technology, infrastructure and production currently allocated to military activities to protect the environment on the ground that issues of security and environment should not be connected. The resolution passed by 113 to 3, and 12 abstentions. Ironically, it was the UK and France that joined the US in voting against the resolution while most of the rest of NATO abstained -----Disarmament Time, 1990:1. {Later in the year 1996, all five declared nuclear states have signed up to the comprehensive Test Ban Treaty}. The US voted against the Biodiversity Convention of the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in the year 1992. According to the 1992 report of the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency {CIA}, to the US Senate, he did not consider global environmental degradation as a threat.

The Kyoto Protocol {Japan} which was similar to the Montreal Protocol {Canada} of 1986 in principles {the reduction in ozone depleting agents} was turned down by the US simply because it didn’t serve their purpose of capital gains. To worsen the whole thing, the US happens to be the greatest polluter of the environment via its massive production of carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere. Addressing this issue from a critical point of view, we ought not to entertain “sacred cows” when it comes to issue that are stern like this. The United States may be important but we need not forget so soon that the entire world is more important. Developing countries that have suffered from neglects should be encouraged financially, socially, scientifically and infrastructure wise. Size for size, Africa is the largest reservoir of basic natural resources yet in penury due to over-exploitations from our “white brothers.” It’s high time the world’s poorest of the poor pooled their resources together and discontinue their former status of sustaining industries in the WEST.

The result of the “Global 2000 Report” carried out in 1977 and submitted in 1980 is too much with us to be overlooked and be chasing shadows. He, who plays the piper, dictates the tune. Obviously, the WEST possesses the remedy to their pre-destinated maladies. Afterall, the media and the scientific data of the world reside with them. The posture of the WEST’s claimed solutions to the plight of the world’s poorest of the poor is well painted in this picture; “I was hungry and you formed a committee to investigate my hunger. I was homeless and you filed a report on my plight. I was sick and you held a seminar on the situation of the underprivileged. You investigated all aspects of my plight and yet I am still hungry, homeless and sick.”- Author unknown.

- Tope Akintola.

tomakint