I agree with Jayne's assessment that people in the more
developed countries do ten times more damage than those
people living in the third world. I read somewhere once
that the problems in Ethopia during the 1980's (and I
suppose that this could be applied to other parts of the
world) was due to the developed countries. The government
of Ethopia had harvested the forests/rainforests/etc. for
wood to pay their debts to the developed countries. This
caused weather patterns to change and resulted in the
droughts and famine. In essence, we residents of developed
countries should probably cut down on our populations.
Also, my feeling is that if we developed countries
hadn't of messed around with the third world countries,
trying to "develop" them, the people of the third world
would be better off. Instead of working in terms of GNP and
exports (thus using land to feed us, give us resources,
etc), they could still be living in a sustainable lifestyle
like they did before our decent. I had read in The Green
Reader (edited by Dobson) that women were much better off
before this meddling -- that their lives and livelihoods
were connected to the land and the natural ecosystems that
were there before things were changed for the modern. I
am interested in hearing what others have to say on this
matter. -- Mary
