Mar 29, 2007 10:37:01 PM cite

The idea that one person can be more responsible than another for anything is the seed of tyranny and slavery. We must all be responsible for our own behavior, for our own feelings and emotions, and for what we each know as individuals. No more.

by CraigAndrew

Sep 11, 2006 3:56:14 AM cite

To say that Governments and Business is doing a bad job of taking care of the Worlds resources, is to say that we the people are doing a bad job. Governments are subject to the will of the People (Voters or Subjects, Rulers are only in power by the will ov the People), and Business is subject to the will of the People (Customers). When the people decide to manage the resources better it will be done.

by thedoc

Sep 9, 2006 5:09:46 PM cite

Hello Barbara: Since politicians and industry and business leaders did and are still doing a bad job about this subject, we all (civilians + politicians + industry) are responsible. We need to speak out and spread the word. Not one, but many grains of sand will make a beach. We have to achieve for everyone to become more social and environmental responsible. History is telling us, we have to change something. And, unfortunately, this is something humanity cannot delegate. Best regards. Alf Giebler

by alfgiebler

Sep 9, 2006 2:25:00 PM cite

Antoschka - Ekaterina Moshaeva: Everybody is responsible. Each person who has more power to concentrate the world´s natural resources in its own hands, you know. But why don´t we ask the question about our own responsibility? Because all concerns or all states, these are only people, you know. You can change the situation when other people hear your voice and you think to have the right to make decisions how we use these resources. It seems to be absurd, a little bit. Because each person is thinking: I cannot do anything! But it can, it´s really so. Now the natural resources are concentrated in the hands of few concerns, some big concerns, you know, and we say, ah, they are responsible. Why are we thinking that some other person must think about us? A lot of people enjoy this because they think: I mustn´t think, I mustn´t move, I cannot change anything. Some other must think. It´s easier to criticize, to criticize Bush or Putin or others, you know, and not to go your own way and only to say I am not responsible and I am good because I am not responsible. But you aren´t good because you do nothing. But giving your voice you make people in the government to make the right decision. It depends on us.

by Antoschka - Ekaterina Moshaeva

Sep 9, 2006 2:25:00 PM cite

Abbas Beydoun: I do not know.

by Abbas Beydoun

Sep 9, 2006 2:25:00 PM cite

Alvaro Restrepo: Normally, each country should be responsable for its own natural resources. In my opinion, we need a global institution, that would be responsable for the politics in the field of environment and natural resources. Unfortunatelly, various countries or the governments of the countries lie in the hands of great economic powers, whose only interest is economic profits. Great economic powers do not care about the preservation of natural resources. For this reason there is a need for a global institution, that would be multinational and multilateral and could control the world´s natural resources. Much injustice has been done, though. In Europe, for example, developed countries have exhausted their own natural resources, this way they have achieved their development. Now they go to the developing countries and want to exhaust their natural resources. We should introduce laws in order to save our natural resources as long as we, the countries of the Third world and especially Latin America, still are "the lungs of the planet". The subject of who should manage the natural resources, is a double moral. In my opinion, we need a global institution, that would be integrated not only by authorities but by communities too, that were in harmony with original ethnics and with natural resources.

by Alvaro Restrepo

Sep 9, 2006 2:25:00 PM cite

Ana Lucy Bengochea: It's for sure that in our countries, native people always have a traditional way of conserving resources. It is important to include the native communities in the project of protecting natural resources, to show them how to be able to handle the resources. We have to stop tolerating the fact that big international companies handle our resources. It's important that also the big organisations handle their own resources. It's proven that these organisations want progress and preservation of natural resources.

by Ana Lucy Bengochea

Sep 9, 2006 2:25:00 PM cite

Andries Botha: Ms. Mark, Barbara, it is your responsibility, you and I. It’s not going to be anybody else’s. We have to shift our philosophical understanding of how we are using non-renewable sources of energy. We have to think in our own personal lives, what we eat, how we drive, what we wear, how we recycle, what it is that you and I can do to change this axis, to shift it. If that’s not going to happen, we cannot wait for government to do that because government’s concerns are too embedded in the kind of financial structures that come from an existing petrochemical economy. If they had to change that, it would cost too much for them but we, you and I, can change that.

by Andries Botha

Sep 9, 2006 2:25:00 PM cite

Angaangaq Lyberth: Answertext will be available soon.

by Angaangaq Lyberth

Sep 9, 2006 2:25:00 PM cite

Anthony Arnove: Well, we all certainly have responsibility for this question of how the resources are responsible. But, we have to really understand who right now is making the decisions about how our resources are managed. And right now, those decisions are being made by a handful of people whose interests are not the interests of the majority, whose interests are not the health of the environment, whose interests are not the long-term consequences of their policies, but whose policies and interests are for the immediate maximization of their control, of their profit, of their privileges through the control of resources. And so, really, there are states that are responsible, there are corporations that are responsible, and they bear a tremendous burden, a tremendous moral burden for their actions as the current managers of the world’s resources. And I think the [corporations] are completely incapable of doing so in a way that is humane and sustainable. And therefore, we have to create alternative mechanisms of control and distribution in democratic means.

by Anthony Arnove

Sep 9, 2006 2:25:00 PM cite

Anuradha Koirala: We ourselves are responsible. We cannot say or point out to other to remind us of identity we have. It is our identity which we have.

by Anuradha Koirala

Sep 9, 2006 2:25:00 PM cite

Anuradha Mittal: Well, I think the obvious answer is that it is a responsibility of each one of us to manage the world’s resources. Each one of us is using the world’s resources; and we cannot pass on the responsibility of governance and management to someone else because when we manage and we are using them, it also means that we have to be the ones who are taking care of the world’s resources. So, on one hand, we need to support and we need to appreciate the indigenous cultures, the small farmers who have been the stewards of the land for example. So, on one hand, we have to learn from that traditional knowledge, from the indigenous knowledge, how do we manage the world’s resources, but in a way that we all can be participants in the process of this management, that we are not just the ones who are users but we are also the caregivers and the caretakers.

by Anuradha Mittal

Sep 9, 2006 2:25:00 PM cite

Ashok Gangadean: It is our responsibility, each individual. And this is very clear when we enter a global age and global citizenship. But the essence of being a global citizenship is recognizing one’s connection with the entire human family and with the entire ecology of the planet. And therefore to take responsibility, not singularly as if you can do it by yourself. But to realize that how we manage our own resources, how we turn off the lights in our own home, how we manage our use of gasoline, how we manage all of the different ways that we consume resources and fuel, how we manage our money and all of our needs. This is really the key. And each individual on the planet needs to realize that he, she has profound responsibility. For are we using and living from an ego mind of selfishness? Or are we living in a more awakened mind of recognizing our connectivity with each other, with the entire human family and with our ecology? And that's really where we can find the sense of responsibility. Individually and collectively. And with this kind of education of awakening the mind, we can see that we need to network as people across the planet. That's part of global citizenship. To share that responsibility in comanaging and self managing, self organizing, in the use of our resources. Then we will certainly have abundance and all people can flourish together.

by Ashok Gangadean

Sep 9, 2006 2:25:00 PM cite

Audrey Kitagawa: It is all of our responsibility to manage the world's resources. This really helps us to get to a more fundamental question of who purports to own the world's resources, and there is a danger when public resources become privatized and go into private hands. And these private hands begin to manage, control, and distribute these public resources. So we have to have awareness as citizens to be able to understand that the public resources should stay public and that we all have the responsibility to see to its management, its care, and its fair distribution among all people.

by Audrey Kitagawa

Sep 9, 2006 2:25:00 PM cite

Avi Primor: I don't think that someone is or has to be responsible for that. The market has to decide. If the resources dangerously shrink the world has to find other resources and new inventions. Who does that? The market and the demand. I think that there will be limits for example for oil because the prices will be too high due to the shrinking oil resources and what will be the result? That the companies that produce energy or life of it will invest in new energies. There will be new research and that's good. We will always have new and other energy and it's the same with all other resources. There are no resources which can't be replaced. You can always replace them if you make an effort. And that's exactly what humans need. They always need a challenge. If there's a challenge humans try hard, there are results and the humans are satisfied. They need a challenge and a reason to try hard but they don't always need authorities which care for them. They can take care of themselves. Not the individual on his own but the society, the community and humanity. And I think humanity will succeed.

by Avi Primor

Sep 9, 2006 2:25:00 PM cite

Benjamin Fahrer: It’s your responsibility, and it’s my responsibility. It's all of our responsibility to manage the world’s resources for we are part of the world and we live in our small, we live and do things in our small ways. It’s up to every single one of us, it’s up to every single one of us to take on the responsibility, to manage our local resources and I will ripple out into the world’s resources. We were talking about scale and something much larger than our local environment, these resources that are being consumed by a huge corporations, it's their responsibility to manage them correctly. Pacific Lumber in Northern California was a very good timber company, where they had their capital invested in the natural system of the forest. Through different situations, they have had to liquidate their capital, to the markets and the junk bonds, if have liquidate their capital, their natural capital and they are turning money into trees. And that is not responsible as a short term. We need to have corporations step up, and this people who are managing at this scale, we are talking about the managing our world resources at that scale, they need to step up and see that they have to be responsible and accountable. And their demanding the rights of personhood, but they’re not be liable for being a person who’s stepping aside saying, “This is corporation, not me” but they want the similar rights. So we need to all see that is our responsibility to take care of these resources. Not necessarily for us, but the several generations that will come after, for our children, for our children’s children, and our great, great, great grandchildren.

by Benjamin Fahrer

Sep 9, 2006 2:25:00 PM cite

Benson Venegas: I consider it a responsibility if - the responsibility of all. It's all of us responsibility. Well there's a ethical consideration behind this answer. It's that some countries around the world consider that they have the right to use natural resources for development. And they really question why some of the first world country are coming to tell them now that they shouldn't use their resources to develope theirselves. They should protect these resources. And there is where we're having a very strong conflict around resources that are having a global importance. So the point there is how can we create economic and financial mechanisms that would allow for these countries, these owner of resources, receive incentives for taking care of these resources in a way that the people that are benefiting also can also provide the benefits to also the people that are holders of these resources. And this is a system we call - in the day of today we call it environmental payment services. And this is taking place as a very important tool to really create those compensation mechanism between the people are benefiting from the protection of the resources and the holder of those resources. Also, we need to develop another approach. I would call it a trans-boundary approach. We need to see resources in the day of today not in the context of national borders but in a more broader regional or international or global perspective. And then, this would allow us to have a better perspective what - who are the responsible person and then would have - came up with a conclusion that the responsibility is a shared responsibility and it's a responsibility of all of us to really protect those resources.

by Benson Venegas

Sep 9, 2006 2:25:00 PM cite

Bianca Jagger: Answertext will be available soon.

by Bianca Jagger