India, March 1 -- When we mark the 50th anniversary of the 1972 Stockholm conference, we need to discuss consumption and production in a globalised world
It's been a generation since global leaders met in Stockholm in 1972 to discuss environmental challenges. Then the concerns were for the local environment; there was no talk of climate change or even the depletion of the ozone layer. All that came later. In 1972, the discussion was on the toxification of the environment as water and air were foul.
Anil Agarwal, Centre for Science and Environment's founder-director, was in Stockholm for this first-ever UN Conference on the Human Environment and he spoke often about how the lakes of this city were so polluted with industrial effluents that...