"The 10% richest folk own 85% of global wealth. If affluent consumption patterns persist, between now and 2040 natural resource consumption will exceed all that was consumed during the past 10,000 years. It was Mahatma Gandhi who so wisely observed: 'Our Planet's resources are sufficient to satisfy everyone's need but not everyone's greed.' "Joseph Hulse (specialist in biotechnologies and international development; from a lecture given at The University of Bolton on 4 March 2008).
Further Quotations from Prof Hulse's lecture:
"Actions to alleviate poverty depend upon political will. For many years affluent nations have been urged to allocate at least 0.7% of the Gross National Income to alleviate poverty. Yet only Scandinavian nations and the Netherlands meet this standard. Even if every OECD nation raised its foreign aid budget to 0.7% of GNI, the total sum given to foreign aid woud be less than 0.1% of annual global expenditures on armaments."
"If the human race is to survive to the end of the century, the world has urgent need of wise, prudent and informed rulers, rulers who will legislate that the Planet's scarce resources be managed and utilised more conservatively; politicialns and administrators of exceptional systematic and versatile vision. For as the Book of Proverbs so wisely reminds us: Without imaginative vision, the human race will most surely perish."
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