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The environmental "debate and communication"
of the World Economic Forum
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Email sent to weforum dated 21 January 2008
Hello, it appears that I'm still on the wef's mailing list, receiving your mail about the Davos WEForum. Unfortunately your communication is unidirectional. In the past I have at least five times emailed to your people without ever getting one syllable of a reply. Twice I sent a letter by normal mail to Mr Schneider, equally without a reaction. But then, WEF is for the large and the powerful and one assumes that that status is equivalent to quality discussions. "No-name" people are not important. Whilst that may be the case with regard to short term economic issues, it can be reasonably asserted that economic and political power have a negative influence on environmental debate quality. The water debate is just one sub-set of environmental issues that the weforum is discussing - no surprise - under the bias of the conventional paradigms of economic growth and the market and private enterprise. ("In 2008 'Water' features heavily at Davos. A major initiative sees 6 leading CEOs set out a call to action, in recognition of the link water has to climate change, bio-fuels, food and agriculture, cities, people and business and the immense strain all our water sources are now under as our world economy continues to grow. Can Davos 08 help catalyze a new global collaboration on water?" http://www.weforum.org/en/initiatives/water/index.htm ) Needless to look further. "Collaboration on water" means privatisation, the privatisation of the profitable parts. Seen enough of that and it results. But that is socio-ideological debate. In the end it does not matter at all whether the earth is overloaded and humanity collapses with 7 or 8 or 9 billion people of equal wealth or with one billion rich and the rest rather poor and 1 billion starving. I'm not trying to change human nature or social distribution patterns. I'm solely committed to correct and scientific environmental debate. I'm trying to show people that they must use the intelligence and simple logic that they have and which surpasses ideological belief systems. Then, and only then, will we have a chance as humanity (rich and poor alike - there's no safe haven for the elites) to survive the coming decades of acute resource scarciteis of all kinds, not just water, in combination with the effects of climate change. The power elites must recognise that this planet is very material and that economic growth is increasing the rates of depletion of non-renewable resources as well as the climate gas emissions. Mr Dominic Waughray, Director, Head of Environment Initiatives World Economic Forum, must also recognise that the weforum, firmly aligned with common economic ideology, bears a large chunk of responsibility for the deterioration of this planet. Because the weforum is not "improving the state of the world". Nor are you independent. The weforum is factually working at increasing the speed of environmental depletion. Your commitment factually is where you funding is: the member companies and the power elites who know nothing but finacial gains and do not understand environmental realities. I repeat, I do not have a social agenda. My only commitment is environmental and factual. You do not yet understand that the earth is overpolulated and that the per capita consumption is far beyond the carrying capacity of this world. But you will come to understand that there are limits indeed and that economic growth is always material and increasing the plight for this planet. In the end you will also grasp that technology and ingenuity will not be able to recreate depleted resources, water, a normal climate, sequester CO2 and revive extinct species. You will see that hope for future miracle solutions cannot replace action with the means one has. It is to be hoped that you will understand soon and revise your economic paradigm, that is before the point of no return. Maybe we have overshot the point of no return. The gravity of our economic growth system is so large that it will take some time before we can bring it to a halt and then start contracting our economy. Unfortunately, people who do not belong to your inner circle and on top of that have the courage to have a different and critical opinion, are normally not listened to. The price for communication appears being adaption and behaviour in line with the idelology that is being taught. It allows making careers and climbing the social ladder. But in the process you loose your faculty of independent and scientific thinking. Thus I do not believe that someone at weforum will seriously read this mail. It will most probably disappear in your electronic waste basket even without having reached the honourable Mr Dominic Waughray, Director, Head of Environment Initiatives. So be it. I can only co what I do, sending this mail and publishing it on my web pages ecoglobe.org and ecoglobe.ch. Should you be open-minded - I was was once told Mr Klaus Schwab is open-minded - then I'll be pleased to explain the ecological facts and necessities in further detail. You can also surf http://ecoglobe.ch/ecostory You may conclude that there is some sound ecological reasoning and that the situation is far more urgent that one normally thinks. With the present economic growth of population size and economic activity, the coming age of changing weather patterns and lack of oil, gas and food, humanitzy may break-down in final resource wars by the middle of this century. Be it one generation later, will it matter? We have lived more or less sustainably for at least 4000 generations, till modern industrial age started around 1750. Now, three hundred years later and we are seeing the end on the human horizon. Full stop. Reality will overtake hopes and aspirations and ideology. With kind regards ... Helmut Lubbers Please do not publish this mail on the WEF webpages, unless it is published completely and without editing. -- Helmut Ewald Lubbers, BE MSocSc DipEcol for: ecology discovery foundation ecoglobe not-for-profit independent ecology advocacy organisation registered in Wellington, New Zealand 14, bd Carl-Vogt, Geneva, Switzerland +41 22 3212320 helmut@ecoglobe.ch http://www.ecoglobe.org sustainability | feedback |
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