A Day In The Life Of Mother Earth : Perspectives

Lester R. Brown is president of the Worldwatch Institute, a nonprofit environmental research and public policy organization based in Washington.

“Every major global indicator of the Earth’s environmental health shows dramatic deterioration since 1972. The forests are smaller. The deserts are larger. . . .

“Two great issues of our time are going to converge there (at the Rio summit)--the environmental degradation of the planet and the spread of poverty.

“What I see is the industrial countries trying to get developing countries to focus on these (global environmental) issues, but the political reality within many Third World countries is that what people are overwhelmingly concerned about is how to survive to the next harvest.”

Maurice Strong, secretary general of the U.N. Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, also led the Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment in 1972.

“I think the conference has a very good chance of a reasonable success at this point. But there still could be a breakdown.

“If the conference breaks down, it will be the biggest single setback to world order and international cooperation probably ever. It doesn’t mean you can’t pick up the pieces. It will take a long time to pick up the pieces, but at this stage we cannot afford a long time.

“We must significantly modify our economic behavior as individuals, as industries and as nations.”

William D. Ruckelshaus was the first administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and was a delegate to the 1972 U.N. Conference on the Human Environment. He is president of Browning-Ferris Industries Inc. of Houston, a waste management company.

“What I really think is at stake here globally is the future of free institutions. I think that suddenly democracies . . . have been thrust into the forefront and given the responsibility of grappling with these very complex (environment and development) problems.

“If we wait for the chronic issues to become acute before we do anything about them, I think the first thing to go will be free institutions. It really is an open question in my mind of whether we can cope with these chronic problems--problems that you don’t need to solve tomorrow in order to survive--within the context of freedom. . . .”

Denis Hayes organized Earth Day 1970 and the 20-year anniversary. He was also on an advisory panel for the 1972 U.N. Conference on the Human Environment.

“The interesting thing about 1972 for me was the fact that although a lot of us were critical of the Nixon Administration in falling short of some of what we hoped would happen, the United States nevertheless was indisputably the leader in world efforts . . . in pushing aggressively for international environmental agreements and pushing for (creation of) the United Nations Environment Program over objections and hostility from Europe, the U.S.S.R. and India.

“In contrast . . . we find ourselves this time associated with a variety of other forces that have been striving to scuttle international treaties, protocols and conventions. This time the United States is the odd man out on issue after issue . . . on everything from global warming to biodiversity.”

Barber B. Conable Jr. is a former U.S. congressman from New York and president of the World Bank.

“The United States is not a leader in carbon restraint. . . . It’s not necessarily his (President Bush’s) fault. The same senators who go and berate the tropical countries for cutting tropical rain forests would abdicate their citizenship before they would vote for a three-cent increase in the gasoline tax (to discourage overconsumption).

“The great bulk of the American people believe they have a God-given right to gasoline at its present price. Most of the other countries of the world pay roughly twice as much for gasoline as we do and have very high taxes.”

Carlo Ripa di Meana, a leader of Italy’s Socialist Party, is the European Community’s environment commissioner.

“We are worse off, unfortunately, than 20 years ago.

“We have limited ourselves to retaliatory programs rather than attacking the problems at the source, which is growing consumption of the Earth’s resources. The main pressure on the environment--the pressure unleashed by the population explosion--has been left out of the reasoning.

“The message--that our resources are limited--has been ignored. We are going beyond the limits.”