Economy is Killing the Planet

It is with great solemnity that this newspaper announces the end of MUN, but what a weekend it has been. Day three of the conference began with a fascinating, if not a little frightening, lecture from Dr. John Barry on the problems of the West’s economic models and their ethics. And while this does not sound like spine-tingling stuff, it would be fair to say that the whole hall was rapt in his dire predictions and ultimatums.

Calling his lecture “The 7,000,000,000nth” Dr. Barry spoke on how, if the global population rises at its current rate (doubling itself every 25 years with no signs of slowing down) then the inherent injustices that run through our global society will become so aggravated and our resources so scarce that the west will not be able to sustain itself. He attacked specifically the western ideal of economic growth, referring to it as a “cancerous growth” that propagates itself at the expense of its host, which, in this delightful metaphor, is us. He pointed out that the richest 20% of the world’s nations are guilty of using 80% of its resources and that they are “systematically dependant on finite resources.” This is in specific reference to the developed world’s relationship with oil, where he successfully challenged the conference to think of one object in the conference hall that was not made with or transported by oil. No one could. He subsequently labelled the US led invasion of Iraq the first ever oil war, something he believes will be more frequent in our future. “If Iraq grew bananas,” he said, “would we have cared?” In the widest sense this makes the west “junkies” for oil, entering into illegal wars to get their fix.

Such an intoxicating and iconoclastic speech certainly roused the feelings of universal responsibility within the delegation. And hopefully these words from President Eisenhower will cement them: the waste of the west “is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its labourers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.”

With such thoughts in mind the delegates, squirming uncomfortably in their slightly sweaty seats, knew that action, co-operation and in Dr. Barry’s words a “war spirit” were the only options available.