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The Role of Media in the War between Environment and Development


First published in the Global Media Journal October 2009


The Role of Media in the War between Environment and Development


In 1992, while I was an ecology student at a University a block away from the World Bank in Washington D.C., an incident occurred that caused the well-heeled Bank a good deal of embarrassment, and gave us environmental beatniks, much cause for hilarity. A memo by the then chief economist of the Bank, Lawrence Summers, got leaked out to the public. In it he commended the “economic logic” of “dumping a load of toxic waste” on the poorest countries as “impeccable” and recommended that the Bank come to terms with the idea.

The memo in essence summed up the prevailing attitude in government and corporations towards the environment at large. An attitude that was largely dismissive of environmental conservation and pollution management as the whim of neurotic tree-huggers who in Reagan’s famous words wanted to keep the world hot in the summer and cold in the winters. The real goal of business and government was seen as economic growth – for therein was the answer to society’s problems and the key to the nation’s triumph. In the process it mattered little what the cost of the environmental fallout would be, or who would bear the brunt. Read more here


For Rita's other published works go to www.ritabanerji.com

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