Mail*Link(r) SMTP FWD>meadows-rovat
Ugyan a tema nem kozvetlenul kornyezetvedelmi; donella szerintem itt olyan
fontos ertekek degradalodasaert kuzd, amik a prosperalo fogyasztoi
tarsadalomban szinte torvenyszeruen elsilanyodnak. Az informacio-kor
kulturalis szennyezese...?
diana
----------------
WHAT SHALL WE DO WITH OUR DIFFERENCES?
A newspaper article the other day explained why the European Community is
sure
to fall apart. The Europeans, it said, are just too different from each
other
ever to get along.
To prove the point, the author repeated that hoary joke about heaven and
hell.
In heaven the police are British, the mechanics are German, the cooks are
French, the lovers are Italian and the Swiss organize the place. In hell the
police are German, the mechanics are French, the cooks are British, the
lovers
are Swiss and the Italians organize the place.
Well, that settles the matter. Europe is doomed.
Or is it blessed? Let's assume for a minute that those national stereotypes
have something to them. (In my experience they do -- a little.) Would you
want to live in a place where everyone is a great cook but a lousy mechanic?
Or a place full of rigorous enforcers of law and order but bad lovers? Or
would you prefer to have good mechanics, cooks, organizers and lovers all
mixed together?
Maybe community is just what Europe needs. The more diversity, the more
kinds
of strength to draw on. Vive la difference!
What I've just done here is substitute one kind of oversimplicity (people who
are different can't get along) with its equally absurd opposite (people who
are different naturally complement one another). On this side of the ocean,
in a
nation chock full of different kinds of people, we know things are more
complex. Every day we both benefit and suffer enormously from our diversity.
Why is that? Why don't we simply combine our various strengths and rejoice?
If, as the joke says, we can use our differences to produce either heaven or
hell, why do we so often produce hell?
That's more than a theoretical question for me, because for 24 years I have
shared my house and farm with a lot of different folks, maybe 70-80
altogether, though only 4-8 at a time. I hardly knew most of them before
they moved in.
When I tell people that, they're usually horrified. They imagine hell. In
fact the experience has been almost always peaceful and productive, though
rarely heaven.
Now I'm forming a larger community, and I'm running up against both versions
of oversimplicity. Anyone who considers joining can see the advantages of
diversity. The city folks in the group are counting on someone else being
the
gardeners. We'll need people who understand accounting, energy,
construction.
We surely need cooks and mechanics, musicians and artists, children and older
folks, rich and poor, those who can work with their heads and their hands.
Those are our dreams of complementarity. Then there are our nightmares of
incompatibility. What if someone is messy, when I like things neat? Loud
when
I want quiet? What if I have to live with someone, heaven forbid, who
Doesn't
Think the Way I Do? The more I talk with people about community, the more I
see how afraid we are of our differences. We seem to want everyone to be
exactly like us except a better plumber and a little more willing to take the
garbage out.
So are we stuck with our fears and our failures, or is there some way, on any
level from a household to a continent, to learn to add up to make more than
the sum of our parts?
I wish I knew. I do know that this question is central if our world or any
small part of it is to flourish. So I try to practice community. Like
anyone
raised in individualistic America, I have to work at it.
I've come to believe that silent resentment is the worst enemy of community.
So I have to learn to air my discomforts with other people, not as big deal,
just as simple fact. I have to discuss problems when they crop up, work them
out, find their lessons. It's not the most natural thing for me to do.
I have to dig deep to understand my own intolerance, separate my moral
principles from my prejudices and egotisms and be willing to stick up for the
principles while letting go of the rest. That's hard. I need the loving
help
of others to do it.
The physical rules of responsibility in a community are obvious. Clean up
after yourself; put tools away; if you break it, you fix it. The
psychological
rules are similar. Clean up your misunderstandings. If you break someone's
trust, fix it. Those rules aren't easy to follow, but it's amazing how much
better the world works, when people even try.
I suppose the real secret of community is the same as the real secret of
marriage: commitment. Be in it for the long haul. Do everything in my power
to make it work. The minute I start playing the "you'd better shape up, or
I'm out of here" game, I'm undermining community, standing on the sidelines,
feeling superior, not helping. Just look around and watch how many people in
their families, workplaces, neighborhoods are playing that game.
So community is hard. Maybe Europe can't hold together, nor our cities, our
families, our nation. And yet most of us, surrounded by increasing material
wealth and failing human relationships, spend our lives longing for
community.
Being responsible, managing our differences, being committed, that all seems
like a huge burden, unless you think about the benefits as well the costs.
And unless you consider the alternatives.
(Donella H. Meadows is an adjunct professor of environmental studies at
Dartmouth College.)
|
Hatha valakit erdekel:
1990-ben:
Magyarorszagon kibocsatott ken-dioxid mennyisege 33-szor, a nitrogen-oxidoke
2-szer, a szen-monoxide 3.5-szor, a leszallo pore 33-szor volt nagyobb, mint
Svajcban.
Budapesten csucsforgalom idejen a legszennyezettsegi ertekek 30-szor
nagyobbak,
mint a nyugaton elfogadott hatarertekek. A bunosok foleg a nehezjarmuvek
(teherautok, buszok), melyek regi, elavult technologiaval mukodnek.
800 varosban es faluban (kb. 800 000 lakost erint) nem megfelelo az ivoviz
minosege a nyugati normak szerint, mert tul magas a szervesanyag tartalom.
550 pesticid van forgalomban (ennek veszelyeirol lsd. elozo Kornyeszek, Our
Stolen Future...) - kozottuk olyanok, melyek tiltottak nyugaton - es ennek
fele
nagy mennyisegben hasznalatos.
A hazai lakossag 44,3 %-a szennyezett kornyezetben el.
Europaban a rakos megbetegedeseket tekintve (/lakos) kiugroan az elsok kozott
vagyunk. Svajcban a varhato atlageletkor tobb, mint tiz evvel magasabb a
hazai
adatokhoz kepest.
Mindez:
International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (1991),
valamint Office federale de l'environment, des forets et du paysage, CH
(1996)
kiadvanyai alapjan.
|
>
>============================================================
>Announcement:
> UNEP's Global Environment Outlook (GEO) on Internet
>============================================================
>WWW http://www.unep.org/unep/eia/geo/ (Main site)
>WWW http://www.grida.no/geo/ (European mirror site)
>------------------------------------------------------------
>
>GEO is a biennial report series and an international
>participatory assessment process. Its twin purposes are to:
>
>1. Provide an overview of major global environmental concerns, their
>causes and impacts; and identify, from a regional perspective, the
>priority issues the international community should address in
>environmental policy setting and action planning;
> and
>2. Set in motion a global participatory assessment process that
>provides a continuous, regionally distributed, scientific and
>policy-consultative mechanism to keep under review the state of the
>global environment, identify emerging issues, set priorities for
>action and guide substantive debate and policy setting in
>international environmental policy fora.
>
>The GEO on Internet WWW pages describe the two main purposes, and give
>an overview of the various GEO components;
> - the Collaborating Centres;
> - the mechanism for regional consultations;
> - the four scientific Working Groups; and
> - the UN participation through the UN system-wide Earthwatch process
>
>The first GEO report, to be released at the UNEP Governing Council in
>January 1997, will simultaneously we released on Internet.
>
>Further information about the Global Environment Outlook:
> Veerle Vanderweerd, UNEP, GEO Project Manager
>  )
>**************************************************************
>* Dr. Sindre Langaas * Phone: +46-8-161737 *
>* Programme Manager * *
>* Nordic/Baltic Region * Fax: +46-8-158417 *
>* UNEP/GRID-Arendal * *
>* c/o Dept. of Systems Ecology * E-mail:  *
>* Stockholm University * *
>* S-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden * URL http://www.grida.no *
>**************************************************************
>* HOT! BALLERINA http://www.grida.no/prog/norbal/ballerin/ *
>**************************************************************
>* COOL! Baltic region database http://www.grida.no/baltic/ *
>**************************************************************
>
>**************************************************************
>
>
|
