United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) –The
dramatic and, in some cases, damaging environmental changes sweeping
planet Earth are brought into sharp focus in a new atlas. One Planet Many People: Atlas of our Changing Environment
compares and contrasts spectacular satellite images of the past few
decades with contemporary ones, some of which have never been seen
before. The huge growth of greenhouses in southern Spain, the rapid
rise of shrimp farming in Asia and Latin America and the emergence of a
giant, shadow puppet-shaped peninsula at the mouth of the Yellow River
are among a string of curious and surprising changes seen from space.
They sit beside the more conventional, but no less dramatic images of
rain forest deforestation in Paraguay and Brazil, rapid oil and gas
development in Wyoming, United States, forest fires across sub-Saharan
Africa and the retreat of glaciers and ice in polar and mountain areas.
The atlas, produced in collaboration with organizations including the
United States Geological Survey and the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA), highlights the explosive growth and changes
around some of the major cities of the world such as Beijing, Dhaka,
Delhi and Santiago. Also covered are developed world cities including
Las Vegas, the fastest growing metropolitan area in the United States,
and Miami. Miami’s spread westwards may endanger Florida’s famous
everglades and their important wildlife and water supplies. Specially
commissioned images of Bucharest, London, Nairobi and San Francisco
supplements One Planet Many People. Klaus Toepfer, UNEP’s
Executive Director, said: “People living in San Francisco or London may
look at these images of deforestation or melting Arctic ice, and wonder
what it has to do with them. That these changes are the result of other
people’s lifestyles and consumption habits hundreds and thousands of
kilometres away. But they would be wrong. Cities pull in huge amounts
of resources including water, food, timber, metals and people. They
export large amounts of wastes including household and industrial
wastes, wastewater and the gases linked with global warming. Thus their
impacts stretch beyond their physical borders affecting countries,
regions and the planet as a whole,” he added. “So the battle for
sustainable development, for delivering a more environmentally stable,
just and healthier world, is going to be largely won and lost in our
cities,” said Mr. Toepfer. … Researchers hope that One Planet Many People Atlas of Our Changing Environment
will have an energizing impact on governments, private business,
non governmental organizations and the private individual by
highlighting how globalization is driving local and regional change.
… The Atlas is completely available to download in screen and print
quality online for free, or it can be purchased as a high quality coffee table book. (06/11/05)
more…

Common Dreams –
India’s economic boom is causing unsustainable environmental damage and
is blinding people to the misery of hundreds of millions of poor,
prize-winning author and activist Arundhati Roy said. “Even if you know
what is going on, you can’t help thinking India is this cool place now,
Bollywood is ‘in’ and all of us have mobile phones,” Roy told Reuters
in an interview. “But it is almost as if the light is shining so
brightly that you do not notice the darkness,” she said. “There is no
understanding whatsoever of what price is being paid by the rivers and
mountains and irrigation and ground water, there is no questioning of
that because we are on a roll.” India shining
was the campaign motto of the Bharatiya Janata Party which lost last
year’s election, unable to capitalise on the fast-growing economy and
failing to convince the rural poor that economic reforms were
benefitting them. Roy won the 1997 Booker prize for her first novel The God of Small Things.
Since then, she has become a leading environmental activist and
opponent of big dams, which have displaced millions. She said India’s
environment faced a major crisis, caused by industrial pollution, by
big dams, and in particular by unsustainable use of ground water to
irrigate thirsty cash crops such as soyabeans, peanuts and sugarcane.
“When the only logic is the market, when there is no respect for
ecosystems, for the amount of water available… then we are in for a
lot of trouble,” she said. “You have to have a system where people have
access to some amount of water to grow whatever is sustainable for them
to survive.” Falling water tables in states such as Andhra Pradesh and
Maharashtra have forced millions of farmers to the brink of ruin.
Buried under unpayable loans, thousands have committed suicide. Roy
said the poor were being sold a dream of consumerism which was
impossible to deliver economically or environmentally. “The idea of
turning one billion people into consumers is terrifying,” she said.
“Are you going to starve to death dreaming of a mobile phone or you
going to have control of the resources that are available to you and
have been for generations, but have been taken away so that someone
else can have a mobile phone?”  (06/11/05)
more…