| The
underdeveloped or third world falters under exploitation both within and without. Some
poor nations slide backwards and carve up their forests to cover short term economic debts
to the wealthier countries. Others strain to recover from civil wars fed by arms suppliers
from wealthy nations abroad. Yet others are held back by ever growing populations. Famine and disease lurk behind them and prey on them periodically,
threatening an all out attack on them in the coming years. The environment of the
planet is reeling under all forms of chemical and industrial pollution and toxic wastes.
The Earth is groaning under the weight of human greed and a sense of great planetary
changes, climatic and atmospheric appears imminent.
Will we be able to continue as we have without something
major going wrong in the natural world that we have spoiled? Even if we avoid nuclear war
our wastes may prove as lethal as our bombs. Our very medicine itself, which attacks
nature, may create the new diseases that will bring down our excessive numbers. |
