We may be speaking of different things. As sustainability issues seem rather different depending where and how one lives...

I don't eat hamburgers, and locally McDonalds is still allot more expensive than the farmer's market. Of course, that means that the farmers cannot afford to buy the hamburgers!

For this country, recent environmental progress came not by willing policy, but due to the sudden collapse and profound changes of the economy that also brought in unthinkable human costs. Poverty does not bring better health.

I cannot agree that anyone may ask anyone else to buy a higher moral standard. No matter how wealthy the buyer might be. Re-arranging social distribution seems to be possible by policy, but the ethics involved remains a tad over my head. The mechanisms involved in the success stories (taken from international comparisons at national level this time) seem to be above the individual level though, and problematic enough.

Global warming ... I was glad to see policy shifting firmly to global level. Take the recent Stern review, and the impending revision of the Kyoto agreement this autumn: it is 'think globally act globally' for them. The evaluation of Kyoto in Vienna a couple of weeks ago was rather less glamorous than the press release had it, but... that's still better than many other global initiatives (especially development aid).


I doubt we are on opposite sides of the fence. Perhaps seeing the problem from different perspectives, rather. And I am not saying I have it right.