New in print: In a state

In his latest State of the World, Lester Brown says we have now transferred the environmental limits which have always kept human populations in check onto a global scale. ``Oceanic fisheries, for example, are being pushed to their limits and beyond, water tables are falling on every continent, rangelands are deteriorating from overgrazing, many remaining tropical forests are on the verge of being wiped out, and carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations in the atmosphere have reached the highest level in 160,000 years.''

If these trends continue, says Brown, ``they could make the turning of the millennium seem trivial as a historic moment, for they may be triggering the largest extinction of life since a meteorite wiped out the dinosaurs some 65 million years ago,'' - meaning humanity and a host of other species. ``As we look forward to the 21st century, it is clear that satisfying the projected needs of an ever larger world population with the economy we now have is simply not possible. The western economic model - the fossil-fuel-based, automobile-centered, throwaway economy that so dramatically raised living standards for part of humanity during this century, is in trouble. Indeed, the global economy cannot expand indefinately if the ecosystem on which it depends continues to deteriorate. We are entering a new century, then, with an economy that cannot take us where we want to go. The challenge is to design and build a new one that can sustain human progress without destroying support systems - and that offers a better life to all.''

Instead of building these new futures, NATO, in its wisdom, is trying to start World War III, the U.S. is disguising its true interest in the Balkans, Milosevic is engaged in genocidal ethnic cleansing and the truth, as usual, is lost among a myriad of media images. The Balkans have always been the centre of conflict in civilised society, so this war is not so unusual. It is the third of what Jacques Delors has described the Resource Wars of the 21st century. A foothold in the Balkans would give US industry access to the Caspian oil fields, yet we are not told this. Milosevic wants the Kosovo region of the Balkans because it is rich in minerals and has some of the most fertile soil in Europe, but we do not know this.

Instead of attempting to build new futures for our children, we are engaged in a conflict that has its roots in the economic policies that are destroying the planet - growth and the pursuit of fossil fuels to perpetuate this growth.

In Ireland, as the response from our corporate media to the Glen of the Downs campaign so poignantly describes, we are no better. We too are consumed with growth and expansion. There is no understanding among our intelligensia why people would devote their lives to save a few trees. Instead, those who struggle to highlight the issues that Brown and his colleagues highlight year in and year out are demonised. They are dismissed as ``eco-warriors'' and labeled ``criminals''.

Yes, there is something seriously wrong with a society that would marginalise and patronise those who want to build new societies for our children. As Brown said in last year's State of the World: ``We are behaving as though we have no children, as though there will not be a next generation.''