Development and Environment

This article is presented through a report brought forth by the World Commission in order to discuss the contemporary issues that affect us all. Since we have seen the Earth from space, we have seen that the emphasis is not on humans. From space, one cannot see the man or woman but can see the clouds, oceans, greenery, and soils. The relevance of this is seen in the report itself, Focusing on the human impact on the environment.
What is the Commission?
The commission is an independent body, linked to but outside the control of governments and the UN system. Their objectives are: to re-examine the critical environment and development issues and to formulate realistic proposals for dealing with them; to propose new forms of international co-operation on these issues that will influence policies and events in the direction of needed changes; and to raise the levels of understanding and commitment to action of individuals, voluntary organizations, businesses, institutes, and governments.
The commission believes that people can build a better future that is prosperous and differs from the pace that we are going now. A new era of economic growth, one that must be based on policies that sustain and expand the environmental resource base. This growth is believed to be essential to relieve the great poverty expanding in the world.
The report focuses on the fact that most of the pros of development have terrible cons. These are referred to as failures of "development". Examples of these failures may be the six million hectares of productive dryland that turns into worthless desert each year, or the 11 million hectares of forests that are destroyed yearly. The realization is coming about that it is impossible to separate economic development issues from environmental issues. The idea is that whatever you try and do developmentally, you have analyze such environmentally and vice versa.
The world is growing very rapidly and the UN projects the population could get between 8-14 billion people in this century. The rapid accumulation of people only serves to deepen the impact of poverty and other issues. These poverty stricken/underdeveloped nations who could soon be suffering from overpopulation have to repay debts to other nations. In order to do this, such countries have to exploit their resources, sometimes to the point of overexploitation. These developing countries are faced with trying to bridge the ever-widening gap between them and the industrialized. But the gap stays too large because the industrial world dominates the rule making. The inequality present, is the planet's main "environmental" problem and it is also the main "developmental" problem.Debts that cannot be payed force nations to overuse fragile soils, changing useful land into desert.This will eventually leave these nations with nothing if they every climb out of debt.
The worry leaks into the idea of security also. The environmental issues brings political unrest and tension to well armed, ill-disposed neighbors.
To fix such a problem, the commission believes, there needs to be not only a new era of economic growth for nations in which the majority are poor, but an assurance that those poor get their fair share of the resources required to sustain growth. The idea of the sustainable development on a global scale requires that people adopt lifestyles that fit the planet's ecological means. Not exploitation. Population and growth have to be in harmony with the changing productive potential of the ecosystem.
The commission ends its report on the premise that sustainable development is not a fixed state of harmony, but a process of change in which the use of resources, direction of investments, the orientation of technological development, and institutional change are made consistent with the future as well as present needs. But like the developmental ideas going hand in hand with the environmental, sustainable development must rest on political will.

-Aaron Price

The Global Information Web As A Threat to State Authority

Monroe E. Price begins the excerpt by the bold statement that, "Every new medium, every new technology for transmitting information, causes responses by those who feel threatened." This statement is reiterated throughout Price's excerpt and remains his main opinion on the state's attempts to keep up with the global exchange of information. Price first shows this trend in the world by the example of the radio. After its introduction, the radio was soon seen to be a threat to national sovereignty so in the 1920s and 1930s measures were made to try and maintain a control over the flow of information through boundaries. Internet now serves as the present day nuisance to the state and Price dares to question how one could control it.
These technologies such as the radio or internet are put forth as "technologies of freedom" in the sense that they have the capacity to overwhelm boundaries and as a result they become key to the spread of democracy. The idea that in these technologies not only information is being exhibited is a problem for those states who wish to be separate in the case of natural sovereignty. If democracy is being shown by the mere use of the technology then the nation wanting to avoid democracy must try to avoid the use of said technology. How becomes the new question.
There are many good things that come as a result of the transmission of information through new technologies such as the enlargement of the marketplace of ideas which helps reduce the intense separatist identities that could lead to war and genocide. But along with the pros of using such a medium of transnational transmission comes the contrast through the interest of a state. States concern themselves with the sustenance of their language, enrichment of their history, and strengthening of their internal political and creative processes. Theses interests along with the ideas of national security limit a states want for involvement in such technologies. So what you end up getting from the state is the function of law making in order to limit use of the transmission technologies.
Price describes the attempt of law-making in the field of media regulation, is like building castles in the sand where complex structures will be forcefully erased by an overwhelming cascade of waves. Still there is a need and desire for moral controls, regulation for indecency, and a restoration of a sense of order and security. This paradox describes many of the states reactions to the situation at hand.
Price then tackles the idea of legislation put forth to limit the technologies justified by a means of preserving national identity, when really national identity can be reframed as the set of political views and cultural attitudes that help maintain the existing power structure. He also mentions that the main incentive to change media law or reregulate occurs, within a state, when the cartel of political allegiances can no longer maintain its position of civil dominance. Price is focusing on the fact that deep down the need for legislation from the states remains in their attempt to re-grasp power over the ever-changing technology.
Price gives an example of a state trying to resist such "technologies of freedom" by India's monopoly on terrestrial broadcasting, justified by the satellite tv channel programs' "adverse impact... on Indian values and culture." In presenting more bans and regulations on the "freedom technologies" India is said to be trying to promote the values of national integration, religious harmony, scientific temper and Indian culture", but ultimately the question is whether the technologies of freedom can be stopped. A question that Price compares to the situation of trying to stop the sun from shining by holding an umbrella. The more you try, the more you encourage people to watch.