The Global address
by Mikhail GorbachevThe Hague, 16 April 1994
Extracts
Ladies and gentlemen, TV-viewers, today I am speaking to you as president
of Green Cross International. When the Conference of Heads of State on
Environment and Development was held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, a global
forum, attended by representatives of more than a hundred countries was
held during the same days in that same city. Parliamentary leaders, scientists,
religious leaders and cultural figures, sharing the concerns of the citizens
of the globe. They decided to set up a global, non-governmental environmental
organisation, Green Cross International, and they requested me to become
its founding president. Today I am calling upon you to request your co-operation
and support.
As all of you, I've been concerned for a long time by two problems, the
nuclear arms race and the environment. When I became the Soviet-leader
I proclaimed in January 1986 the program of moving toward a nuclear weapon-free
world by the year 2000. Now we have been able to put an end to the arms
race. The nuclear arsenals are being dismantled and the threat of a nuclear
disaster has been averted. Unfortunately I was not able to do much in
the area of the environment, even though I understood the scale of the
looming disaster. And I spoke about that from the rostrum of the United
Nations and at various other international fora. Our civilisation is going
through a most profound crisis that threatens to undermine the very foundations
of the existence of humankind. This is a result of the fact that the old
contradiction between mankind and the rest of nature has recently become
more than just that, it has become a profound conflict. For several decades,
many prominent scientists, cultural leaders and people with a heightened
sense of responsibility have been making warnings, trying to alert people,
but they were not really heated. Both policy makers and all of us were
more concerned with current day to day problems. And there are many such
problems that really affect every day the lives of every family, of millions
of people. In addition to that we have until recently lived in a divided
world, a world of cold war, a world of confronting military alliances,
where the environment was of little, of less than secondary importance,
and now we are paying the price for that.
Of course the environment is not the only global problem that causes
concern. The crisis of contemporary civilisation is expressed in a whole
set of problems, such as population and development, energy, food, drug-addiction
and dangerous diseases. All of this requires a lot of attention and great
efforts to address. But still the environment holds a special place among
them. It is the environmental crisis that is the most dramatic manifestation
of the crisis of traditional values and principles, the crisis of philosophies,
which mankind is now facing. I do not want to cite here too many figures
and facts that characterize the ecological situation on our planet, most
of those are known to you. We lack fresh water, needed for the cities
of this world. Half the urban population drinks bad water. Desertification
is a problem; the area of arable land is being reduced; industrial emissions
are resulting in the warming of the climate which is wrought with grave
consequences; rivers, seas and oceans are being polluted; hundreds of
cities on our planet are danger-zones and at the same time the population
of the world grows with one billion people every decade. But perhaps the
most serious manifestation of the fact that the contemporary civilisation
is really running its course, is the fact that while it has been able
to provide adequate living conditions for only one third of the population
of the world, it has brought the world to the brink of the global environmental
crisis. The process of the self-destruction of the foundations of human
development has gone too far, we have crossed certain lines and constraints.
We are in conflict with ourselves, with nature and even with the universe.
Mankind is no longer immortal, we must finally react to this. It is no
longer enough to create a healthier political climate for our planet,
we also need to change the cultural and spiritual framework. We need a
new system of values, a system of the organic unity of man and nature
and the ethic of global responsibility. To find a way out of the crisis,
man needs to believe in his ability, not only to survive facing these
catastrophic dangers, but also to change life on the basis of new values
and new approaches. The most important task of scientists and politicians,
religious and public leaders, artists and journalists and all responsible
citizens is to develop values for all mankind, that will be acceptable
to people of different cultures and convictions.
Green Cross International should play a special role without supplanting
but rather by complementing the existing initiatives and organisations.
Green Cross International and its work will rely on people who have a
credible reputation in various quarters of the society and who have access
to official authorities. We regard Green Cross International as an organisation
that will work from the grassroots level, it is an open forum where broad
popular participation is particularly important. We shall address our
tasks through national organisations. Today such national organisations
already exist in The Netherlands, Switzerland, Japan, Russia and the United
States and soon they will begin to function in dozens of countries. The
super task of Green Cross International and of its national organisations
is to help the development of global environmental consciousness, of new
values and the transition to a new civilisation. Green Cross International
is preparing a number of specific programs that will help to address practical
problems in this area. In particular we will work on codification of international
environmental law, the development of a global TV-network for the environment
and stimulating the efforts at government-to- government level to overcome
the consequences of toxic waste created during the arms race and to help
the conversion of military industries. Without relying on moral norms
alone we need to protect nature through international environmental law.
Ladies and gentlemen, at the end of the twentieth century mankind has
entered upon a crisis, a crisis in which the norms of our existence are
being challenged. A crisis is always a time of choice. Today the economy,
culture, morality and faith, everything is undergoing rapid change. Nations,
states and civilisations are re-thinking the guidelines for their behavior.
This is a difficult time but it's also a time of a great historic opportunity.
We must not shirk this responsibility and we will be judged according
to our deeds.
I thank you all for your attention and I hope that you will encourage
and co-operate with us. And finally I would like to thank Ted Turner and
his staff, who made it possible for me to speak to all citizens of the
globe.
Thank you.
Mikhail Gorbachev
President of Green Cross International
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