Tunza: The UNEP Magazine for Youth, Volume 1, Number 2, 2003 Page: 3
23 p. : col. ill., col. mapsView a full description of this periodical.
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our
g e n eratlon may well be the last that can save the planet
The age group now in power has not achieved enough. It helped
to turn environmentalism and concern for world poverty into a
- global force. It brought about social, economic and technological
revolutions, and fought racism and sexism. But people in the
developed world - and the comfortably-off in the developing
one - became too set in their ways, too attached to a good life
'4 and to their own status, to bring about the switch to sustainable
development that the world desperately needs.
We only need to look around. Nearly half the world's people still
have to live on less than 2 dollars a day. Over 2 million people
die every year because they cannot get clean water. Over a
million children under five die from breathing in the smoke
from burning wood and dung because their families can't get
modern clean forms of energy. Nearly a quarter of the world's
farmland has been degraded. Species are being driven to
extinction alarmingly fast. And global warming is speeding up,
melting glaciers and polar ice shelves, disrupting harvests and
threatening catastrophe.
e-
Can we possibly accept a future of increasing world poverty in a
_disintegrating global environment - and the violence and
conflict that are bound to result?
O We must act, and act now. We may not be in power, but we are
not powerless. Businesses spend billions on advertising to us.
Politicians seek our votes. We should think and buy what we
need - but only products produced with proper care for the
* - environment. And those who can vote should support people
who really work for sustainable development.
As this magazine reports (page 11) young people meeting in
Dubna, near Moscow, Russia, have drawn up ten practicalcommitments which give a guide to action. As other pages in the
magazine show, such action can have a dramatic effect. Many
other important steps have been taken because people were
convinced by their children.
We want to hear from
you - your views, your Above all we must not let our youthful radicalism fade into
news and your ideas. middle-aged complacency. We must tread lightly on our planet -
E-mail us at: keeping our consumption sustainable - while stamping on
tunza@ourplanet.com practices that endanger it.
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Tunza: The UNEP Magazine for Youth, Volume 1, Number 2, 2003, periodical, 2003; Nairobi, Kenya. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc28544/m1/4/: accessed April 19, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; .