"US politicians cannot keep mouthing morality
without learning the morality associated with global cooperation and coexistence.
There is no doubt that we need and should be fighting for good and sound global rules. But
the civil society in the US should be working together with those in other nations to get
such rules. More importantly, it should be fighting its own politicians to respect
international rules. When will mega environmental groups like the IUCN, WWF, Environment
Defence Fund or Sierra Club wake up to this responsibility?"Editor’s
page, Down To Earth, December 15, 1996
"Ideally I wouldn’t like to see Greenpeace operating in India.
Indians should develop their own environmental NGOs. But Greenpeace’s coming to india
shows up a major failing of the Indian NGO movement. Indian environmentalists are
generally quite good on resource management issues because they are not so technically
complex. But they are weak on pollution issues. And given the state of our pollution
control boards, a lot of threats being posed by industrial development are going
unnoticed."
Editor’s page, Down To Earth, December 31, 1996
"It is time Indian environmentalists start thinking upstream.
Industrial and agricultural development in Haryana is taking place at the cost of the
health of millions in Delhi. And Delhi is urbanising and industrialising at the cost of
Mathura and Agra. A tale of 'who cares'?"
Homicide by Pesticide, CSE, 1997
"Corruption destroys the environment. It encourages the loot of
the natural estate. When people see corruption around them and realise state regulations
are meaningless, they too join in the plunder. Thus, plundering air, water, forests and
other common lands become a way of life."
Down To Earth, October 31, 1998
"Sorry to say this, Mr Sen, but I think the challenge we face is quite
different than the simplistic one you have put forward. Amartya Sen made his mark
by pointing out that people often die of hunger not due to a shortage of food but often
because they lack ‘entitlements’. He therefore talks of welfare systems to
create ‘social security safety nets’. The problem is this analysis can explore
and explain ‘economic poverty’, a phenomenon Sen’s professional colleagues
— namely, economists — love to study. It completely ignores what I would like to
call ‘ecological poverty’. Why are economists unable to fathom it, including our
‘sensitive’ Nobel Prize winner?"
Down To Earth, April 30, 1999
"Global environment negotiations may seem currently far removed from local
and more immediate Southern concerns, but ignoring them in these early stages, when the
rules are being set for future global governance, would be tantamount to the people of the
developing world giving up their rights as global citizens. The world faces an
enormous challenge in the coming century — learning to live as one interdependent
world. As yet our leaders have shown little vision and even little graciousness to build a
caring and sharing world. But the world’s civil society and its public will have the
capacity to turn around the politicians and the bureaucrats. It is only this idealism and
vision that will secure ‘our common future’."
Green Politics, Global Environmental Negotiations-1, CSE, 2000
