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CHAPTER 12
TOWARDS COMMON ACTION:
PROPOSALS FOR INSTITUTIONAL AND LEGAL CHANGE
1. In the middle of the 20th century. we saw our planet from space for the first time. Historians may eventually find that this vision had a greater impact on thought than did the Copernican revolution of the 16th century, which upset humans' self-image by revealing that the Earth is not the centre of universe. From space, we see a small and fragile ball dominated not by human activity and edifice but by a pattern of clouds, oceans, greenery. sod soils. Humanity's inability to fit its activities into that pattern is changing planetary systems fundamentally. Many such changes are accompanied by life-threatening hazards. from environmental degradation to nuclear destruction. These new realities, from which there is no escape, must be recognized and managed.
2. The issues we have raised in this report are inevitably of far reaching importance to the quality of life on earth indeed to life itself. We have tried to show how human survival well.being could depend on success in elevating sustainable development to a global ethic. In doing so, we have called for such major efforts as greater willingness and cooperation to combat international poverty, to maintain peace and enhance security world-wide, and to manage the global commons. We have called for national and international action in respect of population, food, plant and animal species, energy, industry, and urban settlements. The previous chapters ave described the policy directions required.
3. The onus for action lies with no one group of nations. Developing countries face the challenges of desertification, deforestation, and pollution, and endure most of the poverty associated with environmental degradation. The entire human family of nations would suffer from the disappearance of rain forests in the tropics, the loss of plant and animal species, and changes in rainfall patterns. Industrial nations face the challenges of toxic chemicals, toxic wastes, and acidification. All nations may suffer from tile releases by industrialized countries of carbon dioxide and of gases that react with the ozone layer, and from any future war fought with the nuclear arsenals controlled by those nations. All nations will also have a role to play in securing peace, in changing trends, and in righting an international economic system that increases rather than decreases inequality. that increases rather than decreases numbers of poor and hungry
