Guest guest Posted February 13, 2004 Report Share Posted February 13, 2004 This message was forwarded to you by yitzeling. Comment from sender: This article is from The Star Online URL: http://thestar.com.my/lifestyle/story.asp?file=/2004/2/10/features/2004021011071\ 0 & sec=features ________________________ Tuesday February 10, 2004 Stop the destruction By HILARY CHIEW ARENOWNED environmentalist says he is terrified of the state of the environment and appealed passionately to delegates at the 7th Conference of Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity in Kuala Lumpur to expedite programmes to halt biodiversity losses and restore the health of the Earth. “I’m terrified of the future. The scale of redress is slow and superficial,” said Canadian geneticist Dr David Suzuki yesterday. Appealing to representatives of governmental, environmental organisations and non-governmental organisations in his keynote address entitled The Challenge of the 21st Century: Setting The Real Bottomlines, he urged all parties to set aside their political agendas and differences to avert an environmental catastrophic in the making. Stressing that he is addressing the meeting in his capacity as a parent more than a scientist, he said that in his last years of life, he is moved by the same sense of urgency felt by her daughter Severn Suzuki who addressed the First Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. At the inaugural World Summit on Sustainable Development in the Brazilian capital a decade ago, Severn, who was representing voices of the young people, challenged decision-makers of the adult population to fulfil their promises of protecting the environment. Suzuki said humanity had evolved into a super species armed with scientific muscle power and a huge appetite fed by globalisation to plunder resources from every nook and corner of the world and created new consumption markets that resulted in unabated pollution. Citing the example of the use of canaries by miners as an early warning system of air poisoning, he lamented the irony that people failed to recognise the signs of poisoning caused by pesticides. “We are not paying attention even when our children become the canary,” he said in reference to the rising asthmatic cases among children and the penchant of these parents for huge cars that caused the air pollution that poisoned their children in the first place. Suzuki, 67, lashed out at media indifference to the warning issued by scientists on the state of environmental degradation by dismissing it as “not news-worthy”. He also said human understanding of the natural world is insufficient to enable it to design an effective management regime but added that humans could start by reducing its impact on the environment through changes in lifestyles. Speaking to reporters later, Suzuki also said that the 2010 target to reduce the rate of biodiversity loss significantly was “ridiculous” as humans were “still heading in exactly the wrong direction” because there was too much pressure from the global economy. “We have always taken nature for granted and taken what we wanted,” he said adding that humans had to stop destroying habitats and ecology. <p> ________________________ Your one-stop information portal: The Star Online http://thestar.com.my http://biz.thestar.com.my http://classifieds.thestar.com.my http://cards.thestar.com.my http://search.thestar.com.my http://star-motoring.com http://star-space.com http://star-jobs.com http://star-ecentral.com http://star-techcentral.com 1995-2003 Star Publications (Malaysia) Bhd. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of Star Publications is prohibited. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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