Greeniacs in Jo-burg

‘A GREAT tragedy is fast unfolding,” intones Gus Speth, dean of the Yale School of Forestry and one of the most respected figures in American environmentalism. “More than 20 years ago the alarm was sounded regarding threats to the global environment, but the environmental deterioration that stirred the international community then continues essentially unabated today.” Population growth, affluence, and technology, Speth warns, are pushing us toward “a swift and appalling deterioration of the natural world. Only a response that in historical terms would be seen as revolutionary is likely to avert these changes.”

As we prepare for the latest U.N. environmental carnival—the “World Summit on Sustainable Development,” to be held in Johannesburg over our Labor Day weekend—despair is indeed warranted. No, not despair over the state of the planet. Despair over the state of the world’s intellectual elite.

JT

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Jerry Taylor

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‘A GREAT tragedy is fast unfolding,” intones Gus Speth, dean of the Yale School of Forestry and one of the most respected figures in American environmentalism. “More than 20 years ago the alarm was sounded regarding threats to the global environment, but the environmental deterioration that stirred the international community then continues essentially unabated today.” Population growth, affluence, and technology, Speth warns, are pushing us toward “a swift and appalling deterioration of the natural world. Only a response that in historical terms would be seen as revolutionary is likely to avert these changes.”

As we prepare for the latest U.N. environmental carnival—the “World Summit on Sustainable Development,” to be held in Johannesburg over our Labor Day weekend—despair is indeed warranted. No, not despair over the state of the planet. Despair over the state of the world’s intellectual elite.