Word: worldwatch
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...groups are calling for fact-finding missions and legal action to discourage future acts of ecowarfare. Their worst nightmare is that the idea of holding nature hostage will spread to other conflicts. "I don't think we can tolerate this happening again," says Michael Renner, senior researcher at the Worldwatch Institute. "The environment is already under attack from our activities in peacetime." What can be done to prevent recurrences? One possibility: an international agreement that, like a Geneva Convention, would make ecoterrorism a war crime as punishable by law as the murder of hostages or the torture of POWs...
...cold war was the paradigm of the old world order. The New Paradigm is what we are seeking. Communism and socialism are Old Paradigm. Big ideology is dead, and global environmentalism will come more and more alive. "In effect," says Lester R. Brown, president of Worldwatch Institute, "the battle to save the planet will replace the battle over ideology as the organizing theme of the new world order. The goal of the cold war was to get others to change their values and behavior. Winning the battle to save the planet depends on changing our own values and behavior...
Environmentalists must share part of the blame: they have not offered a coherent plan of action either domestically or internationally. Admits Lester Brown, president of the Washington-based Worldwatch Institute: "The agenda is fairly confused. A number of environmental groups have grown up independently, with their own memberships, their own budgets and their own objectives." Thomas Lovejoy of the Smithsonian Institution is worried that the cacophony of environmental lobbying is beginning to be counterproductive. Says he: "I sense a real frustration among the more concerned and active members of Congress about enough being enough. If you wear out your best...
History shows that such environmental destruction can have far-reaching consequences. The salinization of irrigated land led to the fall of Mesopotamia and Babylon, and perhaps even the Mayan civilization of Central America. Similar pressures are at work today. Sandra Postel of Worldwatch Institute estimates that 60 million hectares (nearly 150 million acres) of irrigated land worldwide have been damaged by salt buildup...
...Brown, head of Worldwatch Institute, warns again this year of the globe's diminishing ability to produce enough food to keep up with population growth because of erosion, deforestation and air pollution. His annual State of the World report has sold out -- 100,000 copies -- and the presses are being readied for a new run. There are scoffers, principally in the U.S. Department of Agriculture, who say we can release millions of acres of cropland from the soil banks, pour on the fertilizer and meet any food demand. But Brown, with his soft voice and his inevitable bow tie, holds...