Chiding his former colleagues to act and to act now, Mikhail Gorbachev, the last head of state of the USSR, has weighed in on the climate debate with this op-ed published in the Rossiyskaya Gazeta, a newspaper that he partly owns.
For Rossiyskaya Gazeta, Gorbachev writes in part:
“The latest scientific data on climate change is extremely disturbing. This is the last call. But even more alarming is the discrepancy between the warnings of science and the status of negotiations. … The global ecological crisis encapsulates almost all of humanity’s most pressing issues. … Therefore, all the excuses and pretexts for inaction, including conversations about how we now have more important issues to address, must be completely tossed aside. If you won’t solve this problem, you won’t be able to solve any of the rest.”
Later, explaining why it must be governments and not corporations who lead the way to a “new economic model,” Gorbachev writes:
“Only a government can establish firm standards and regulations, without which which the battle against climate change is unthinkable. … the global financial crisis has shown that the economy is undermined not by caring about providing normal living conditions for present and future generations, but by something else entirely: the irresponsible race for super-profits at any cost, blind faith in the ‘invisible hand of the market,’ and failure to act on the part of the state. … a moral ‘refitting’ of the business community will be required.”
By Mikhail Gorbachev, former USSR president
Translated By Yekaterina Blinova
December 8, 2009
Russia – Rossiyskaya Gazeta – Original Article (Russian)
The U.N. summit in Copenhagen devoted to the issue of climate change is set to begin, but it’s increasingly obvious that the agenda in no longer purely ecological.
The global environmental crisis encapsulates almost all of humanity’s most pressing difficulties. From it stems a direct link to security and an even more dangerous probability of additional domestic and international conflict; flows of migration in the multimillions which are already destabilizing politics and the economy; rising poverty and social inequality; a water crisis; and shortages of energy resources and food supplies.
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