Southern governments are not well-prepared for the international environmental negotiations that are taking place, and the non-governmental organisations have not been of much help either.
The volume of environmental literature coming out these days is quite impressive. In bookstores all over, environmental publications—the mild, the strong and the provocative—from the countries of both North and South vie for the readers´ attention. Sustainable development quotes from Mahatma Gandhi to Maurice Strong, and from Chief Seattle to Gro Harlem Brundt land, pop out of every page. There seem reason enough to believe that the problems of the environment worldwide are being tackled adequately and to be optimistic that we are about make fundamental changes in our unsustainable patterns of natural resource consumption.
Outside the bookstores, however, the hope and confidence evaporates. Much of today´s environmental writing remains confined to abstract ideas and remote from real-life situations. The books, articles and newsletters are mostly part of reactive protests against problems, and carry little proactive prescriptions. The call for ´alternative development´, so strong in the aftermath of the Stockholm Conference in 1972, is today but a whimper. The enthusiasm rekindled in Rio de Janeiro in June 1992 is also being wasted.
Yet, in no other period of human history has the future of the globe and all its living beings been so much in need of alternative lifestyles based on our environmental knowledge and wisdom. Action taken or postponed today will cast a long shadow into the next century. One may think that these changes are relatively easy to identify and prescribe, but that does not seem to be the case. Transformation is required at different levels, from changing of personal habits to changing the ´global habits´.