At 10:49 03/10/2000 -0700, you wrote:
>Some one on the listserve was looking for articles and info. on this topic.
>
>Here is a reference.
>_____________________________________________________________________
>At the Olympics, Cycling and Recyling
>
>By Rajiv Chandrasekaran
>Washington Post Foreign Service
>Thursday , September 28, 2000 ; D13
>
>SYDNEY, Sept. 27 -- There are no plastic forks or garbage cans at this
>summer's Olympics. Forget about drink lids and aluminum-foil wrapping. And
>don't even consider Styrofoam or plastic cups.
>
>Hungry at the Games? Think cornstarch and worms.
.....and another thing
The United Nations defines sustainable development as "that which meets the
needs of the present without compromising the needs of future generations".
Recent studies show that to achieve this, greenhouse gas emissions, a good
measure of consumption, would need to be less than 3,500kg of CO2 per
person per year.
Through the Olympics, tourism is promoted as a key avenue for sustainable
development. Yet it takes 9,600kg of greenhouse emissions per passenger for
one return trip for a typical tourist from USA. That’s almost three times
an individuals sustainable allowance for everything for a year! Even a
Sydney to Brisbane return flight creates 2,100kg per passenger, and with
the average Australian creating 2,400kg just for their annual car travel,
even local tourism is a major concern.
Our dependence on tourism and its service industries is plainly
unsustainable, and "green-washing" it with terms like "eco-tourism" doesn’t
help.
Information, service and technology industries are also fundamentally
dependent on encouraging more consumption among people like us who should
be looking at reducing our personal emissions by 80%. No industry which
relies on unsustainable levels of consumption can be the basis for a
sustainable future.
We are so totally dependent on market growth for the jobs that will pay our
rent that even some "environmentalists" are resorting to calling jet
setters "eco-tourists".
Fundamentally, it is having to pay the rent which forces us into such
warped rationalisations.
A basis for sustainable development could be provided by government in its
management of suburban public land. Our natural dependence is on the land,
not on the market place. Until it is possible for anybody to have FREE
secure access to land ON THE CONDITION of using it to provide food shelter
and community sustainably, we will be forced into increasingly competitive
and unsustainable practices.
The challenge we face is to show a viable attractive suburban lifestyle
which could be made accessible to any number of the world’s people who
might choose it. Freedom from the burden of having to pay for land could
create employment & housing which is not subject to the same pressures to
compete, mechanise & stimulate consumption.
...... and another thing
Tourism can only be maintained while the disposable income of a section of
the world remains very high in global terms. The injustice of this leads to
war, and todays wars are not with bows and arrows. With the earth already
groaning under the strain, what will happen as those others throughout the
world demand regular meals, AND a share in the advantages of things like
electricity, and then their right to the opportunity to fly around as
tourists too?
When the greenhouse problem really starts to bite, the tourist industry,
based as it is on massive consumption of fossil fuel, will have to pay a
very high price. Eco tourism is a contradiction in terms ans as for "Green
Olympics" - who's kidding who?
Chris Baulman
______________________________________________________
CARETAKERS
http://www.caretakers.org.au/
Sustainable Work, Community and Lifestyle Project
caretakers@earthling.net
02) 4758 8411
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