What the world needs today is a totally new way of thinking; a new philosophy of action. Never before have we experienced such a time where evolution doesn't come progressively, but in bursts of changes. This is a fundamental feature of our times: its explosive load and the tendency to unchain multiple explosions in all sectors of human activity. We are living through an era of explosion: the atomic explosion, the industrial explosion, the demographic explosion, the psychological explosion of the oppressed population, the explosion of youth opposing itself to the pre-atomic bomb generation. Always a violent and sharp explosion, in a process of destroying to create; giving form to the new technological generation into which we are all being dragged - for better or for worse. This is an universal revolution which has no ethics or ideology. Today technology is the theology of the west.4

Technology is not good or bad. It is its use that gives it an ethic meaning. In Third World countries technology works against the underdeveloped population, because it is used to produce maximum advantage and profit for the dominating economic group.9

Third World countries might witness the implementation of a technological development that will neglect its environment and thus undermine its structure. The problem seems even worse when we consider how fragile some equatorial and tropical ecosystems are and that most are located in underdeveloped countries.9

Underdeveloped countries that already have to fight for survival need also to focus on environmental issues and on world development in order to protect themselves from the aggression of colonialist metropolis, which for centuries have destroyed human condition in underdeveloped areas.9

One of the best regions to observe as test ground for our theories is the sugar-producing northeast of Brazil, with its typical natural environment. The life of its soil, water, plants and even its climate has changed because of the unbalancing and untimely action of colonizers gone blind by greed, always wanting to plant more sugar cane and produce more sugar.2

This is why underdeveloped countries are concerned with environmental problems and pollution. They worry because the underdevelopment they find themselves in is a consequence of a kind of development which was conceived with no respect for Nature and in which Man is merely an instrument for production.13

Pollution is a universal disease that interest humanity as a whole, but there are different pollution in the world. Rich countries only know direct, physical and material pollution: the environment pollution. Underdeveloped countries are easy preys for hunger, misery, mass diseases and illiteracy. The Third World man knows this kind of pollution as "underdevelopment". And I should add that this is the most serious and terrible of them all.13

The environment is not just a set of material elements which interrelate and form the building blocks of geographical landscape. Its much more then that. The economical and mental structures of the human groups that inhabit different geographical spaces are also part of the environment.9

By this approach it is easy to understand that the environment includes biological, physiological, economical and cultural aspects, which are all woven together to form an ecological dynamics in constant transformation.9

While needs still have to be met it is necessary to repudiate any proposals which might interrupt growth and at the same time reject aimless development (or development aiming only profitability) and production methods that pollute and degrade life and environment.13

The whole strategy which separated the social realities of the Third World from that of the rest of the world was fatal for the improvement of environmental conditions. The biosphere is a single ecosystem made of multiple subsystems.9

I insist in making clear that the birth of underdevelopment is not in the simple lack of development. No! It is a product - a very negative one - of development itself. Development brings within it the riches and the manufacturing capacity on one side and on the other, its wastes. The Third World carries the waste. 13

Pollution should be discussed in an international forum, for it is a universal issue. Pollution cannot be regulated single-handedly by national policies. If a country on its own should be bold enough to apply all the necessary regulation it would watch its production rapidly reach prices that will be unable to compete in the world market and soon be bankrupt. Regulation has to be done on a world scale model. Delegates at the Stockholm Conference tackled the subject but, well, didn't solve it. Other essential issues - war and arms, among others - were discussed but only reached dead ends - which was quite expected. Everyone knows that the best thing we can obtain from this kind of situation is just a good recommendation… Each country will then have the choice to adopt it or not.13

In order to really deal with this issue it would be necessary to promote a broad consultation but also create the authority of a 'World Government'. If the expression bothers you, we can call it a sovereign and planetary court to be established. In spite of all this, it is still mandatory that measures be taken.13

I have nourished this hope. I hope that pollution is a big enough issue which will finally bring victory to a world approach over a national one.13

We cannot passively wait for the future, for if we do, it will trample over us. Mankind has to create its own future. We're no longer spectators. We can no longer be men of sciences and philosophy, simple theoreticians of the Greek concept of the word.11

Not capitalism nor communism, but something else. Maybe one day society will be able to live as a single organism. But in order to achieve this goal, it has to build itself around a common thought.11

We need to change the economy of war in which we live in to an economy of peace and use the immense savings which will come from partial disarmament to reach the kind of peaceful and egalitarian development which will not pollute. 9

(1992) - CHAPTER 27 One of the major challenges facing the world community as it seeks to replace unsustainable development patterns with environmentally sound and sustainable development is the need to activate a sense of common purpose on behalf of all sectors of society.