Others have been saying it for a while now, but former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev has put it most eloquently: there’s no fixing the economic crisis without also taking into account our environmental crises.
“This financial turmoil, which will heavily affect the real economy, was absolutely predictable, and it is only one aspect of the wider crisis of all the current development systems,” Gorbachev told the Inter Press Service (IPS) this week. “In fact, there are connected simultaneous crises that are rapidly emerging. These relate to energy, water, food, demography, climate change and the ecosystem devastation.”
All these problems, Gorbachev says, can be boiled down into one root cause: the mistaken belief in unlimited growth on a planet with finite resources.
While it’s possible to deal with that reality and start fixing the world’s problems, economic and ecological, too many people and industries are either ignoring or actively silencing the challenges we face, according to Gorbachev. The antidote he’s calling for: a global glasnost (openness) that exposes the true nature of the Earth’s environmental threats.
That glasnost is especially needed in the media, which needs to shift from its superficial, breaking-news-type approach to a more investigative, long-term-consequences-focused approach, Gorbachev says.
“Time is running out,” he says. “The most efficient way to tackle the urgent environmental problems our planet is facing is transparency, and the media have a vital role to play.”
Words of wisdom from a long-time leader in social change (the 1990 Nobel Peace Prize winner, Gorbachev has since founded both Green Cross International and the Gorbachev Foundation).
You can read more of the Gorbachev interview at IPS.
Shirley Siluk Gregory
Shirley Siluk Gregory, a transplanted Chicagoan now living in Northwest Florida, represents the progressive half of Green Options' Red, Green and Blue segment. She holds a bachelor's degree in Geological Sciences from Northwestern University but graduated in 1984, just when the market for geologists was flatter than the Florida landscape. Just as well, though: she had little interest in spending her life either in a laboratory or, heaven forbid, an oil field. So, of course, she went into journalism. After extremely low-paying but fun and educational stints at several suburban Chicago weeklies and dailies, Shirley and her then-boyfriend/now-husband Scott found themselves displaced by a media buyout and spending the next several years working as freelancers. Among their credits: The Chicago Tribune, a publication for the manufactured-housing industry, and Web Hosting Magazine, a now-defunct publication that came and went with the dotcom era. Shirley's always been concerned about nature and conservation (and an avid pack-rat, as her family can attest to), but became even more rabidly interested in the environment primarily due to two factors: the growing signs that global warming was real and threatening, and the birth of her son, Noah, in 2003. Suddenly, the prospect of a world that might not be quite as habitable in 40 or 50 years took on a whole new, and personal, meaning. Living where she lives now also helped light the fire of Shirley's environmental awareness: her hometown was severely damaged by Hurricane Ivan in 2004, and beaten up again by Hurricane Dennis in 2005. That, and the fact that she and her family were vacationing in New Orleans until the day before Katrina -- and spent 12 hours driving home for a trip that normally takes 3 -- has made Shirley deeply appreciate how fragile our lifestyles are, and how dependent they are on sound management of natural resources and sustainable living practices. That's why she's become a passionate reader and writer about all things green and sustainable.
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