Earth's Ecological Debt Crisis

Swallowing The Context Of "Earth's Ecological Debt Crisis"

From http://www.medialens.org

The Bland Leading The Bland

October 9 saw one of the Independent's explosive front-page stories on the global environment: "Earth's ecological debt crisis." According to a new study, humanity is "putting an intolerable strain on nature". Martin Hickman, the Independent's consumer affairs correspondent, explained:

"For the first time a green group, the London-based new economics foundation (nef), has sought to pinpoint how quickly people are expending global raw materials - fertile land, forests, fish, air and energy.

"By analysing data from the US academic group Global Footprint Network, the think-tank has worked out the day each year when 'humanity starts eating the planet'." (Hickman, 'Earth's ecological debt crisis: mankind's "borrowing" from nature hits new record,' The Independent, October 9, 2006)

Just like a company bound for bankruptcy plunging into the red, the world starts falling into ecological debt on 9 October:

"Problems, affecting everything from the seabed to the stratosphere, range from carbon dioxide emissions to the destruction of rainforests to the intensification of agriculture."

The crisis described in the article could hardly be more serious; humanity really is devouring the planet's life-support systems. And yet, typically for a mainstream media report, Hickman's analysis of the causes was lost in bland cliché: "rapid population growth" and "rising living standards" around the world.

But consider the deeper, taboo issues behind these "higher living standards". In a series of incisive books, historian Mark Curtis has shown how the traditional aim of British policy-makers is to protect "favourable investment climates" for big business around the globe, while targeting governments who refuse to comply. Hence the need for numerous British and US military interventions in Iran, Iraq, Kenya, Indonesia, British Guiana, Central America, and elsewhere.

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Best wishes

The Editors