Kedves Diana!
Nyilvanos gyanusitgatas (-szeru megfogalmazas) utan - ugy 
gondolom - a megkovetesnek is nyilvanosnak kell lennie. Miutan mar 
volt reszem hozzaszolas visszautasitasban (ahogy irtad, a meg nem 
jelentetes megindokolasaval), a kigolyozasban en is inkabb a 
technika ordogenek es nem a KORNYESZ angyalanak a kezet 
sejtettem. Elnezest a szertencsetlen fogalmazasert.

Gacs Ivan

PS: Azert a technika ordoge utolso levelembe is betette a labat. Eleg 
kenyes vagyok irasaim formajara, ezert kozlom, hogy a megjelent 
iras sortoresei messze nem ott voltak, mint a bekuldottben. Emiatt is 
elnezest kerek.
GI

> WHY GREENS DON'T LOVE THE WTO
>
> Last month The Economist ran a frustrated editorial wondering why environment
al
> groups would picket the upcoming World Trade Organization (WTO) meeting in
> Seattle.  The headline read "Why Greens Should Love Trade."
>
> Actually greens see no particular reason either to love or hate trade.  They
> don't share the religious beliefs of economists, who love trade as
> indiscriminately as they love growth.  Greens are inclined to ask questions.
> What is being traded?  For whose benefit?  At whose expense?  What are the fu
ll
> costs to workers, local communities, nature?  When those questions are
> answered, some trade looks lovable, and some we would be better off without.
>
> What enviros, along with human rights advocates, labor organizations, and man
y
> other citizen groups, emphatically do not love is the World Trade Organizatio
n.
> That's because they've had four years now to watch it work.  Here are some
> examples of what they've seen.
>
> - The European Union banned its own farmers from injecting meat animals with
> hormones (which make animals bulk up faster, but are suspected of causing
> cancer and hormone disruption) and forbade the import of hormone-treated meat
s.
> The U.S. and Canada, whose feedlots are riddled with hormones, challenged thi
s
> ban in the WTO.  The WTO ordered the Europeans to drop the import ban or suff
er
> retaliatory tariffs.  The U.S. has chosen to impose those tariffs on cheeses,
> mustards, wines, and other profitable European exports -- that's why angry
> French farmers are smashing their tractors into McDonald's restaurants.
>
> - The U.S. Endangered Species Act requires shrimp trawlers to install turtle
> exclusion devices in their nets, so they will not catch and drown endangered
> sea turtles.  To protect its shrimpers from cheaper imports caught without
> turtle protectors, the U.S. forbids shrimp imports from countries that do not
> have a similar law.  India, Malaysia, Pakistan and Thailand challenged that b
an
> in the WTO, which ruled that the U.S. measure violates free trade rules.
>
> - When the Environmental Protection Agency decreed that gasoline sold in the
> U.S. had to be formulated in a way that reduces air pollution, Venezuela and
> Brazil sued and won under the WTO.  The EPA weakened its standards.
>
> - Japan had stricter limits on pesticide residues in agricultural products th
an
> did other countries.  The U.S. challenged Japan in the WTO and won, forcing
> Japanese consumers to ingest more pesticides than their own government
> considers safe.
>
> - Guatemala passed a law recommended by the World Health Organization
> forbidding makers of baby formula to claim that expensive formula (rather tha
n
> free mother's milk) is necessary for fat, healthy babies.  Gerber Products
> convinced the U.S. to challenge that law in the WTO.  The WTO didn't even hav
e
> to decide; the threat of a trade challenge caused Guatemala to drop its law.
>
> - The citizens of Massachusetts, upset by the brutal human rights abuses of t
he
> military rulers of Burma, passed a law forbidding their state government from
> doing business with any contractor that does business with Burma.  Some of th
e
> affected companies persuaded Europe and Japan to challenge this boycott in th
e
> WTO.  The case is still pending; meanwhile the Clinton Administration uses it
> as an argument to dissuade other states from similar sanctions.
>
> The WTO is not the only free-trade body that works to weaken environmental an
d
> human rights laws.  Under NAFTA (the trade agreement linking the U.S., Canada
> and Mexico) the Ethyl Corporation forced Canada to withdraw its ban on Ethyl'
s
> new gasoline additive MMT, which is suspected to cause brain damage.  The
> Metalclad Corporation is suing a Mexican state for shutting down one of its
> hazardous plants.  A Vancouver corporation is suing the state of California f
or
> banning yet another gasoline additive (MTBE), which has polluted the state's
> groundwater.
>
> The rationale for decisions like these is that no nation should have the powe
r
> through trade sanctions to reach into any other nation and dictate its laws.
> The U.S. shouldn't force other nations to protect turtles.  Europeans shouldn
't
> forbid U.S. feedlots from using hormones.  What the free-traders are
> astonishingly slow at perceiving is that the WTO DOES allow violations of
> sovereignty and self-determination, but ONLY IN ONE DIRECTION -- toward
> weakening social and environmental protections.  Other nations can pressure t
he
> U.S. not to protect turtles.  The U.S. can punish Europeans for not wanting
> meat laced with hormones.  A U.S. company can strike down a Canadian health
> law.  Corporations can lean on a U.S. state's commitment to human rights.
>
> The Economist, in trying to fathom why greens don't love free trade, expresse
d
> perfectly, if inadvertently, the problem at the foundation of free trade
> fanaticism.  "Protecting the environment," it grudgingly admitted, "is as
> legitimate a goal as free trade."
>
> No.  Not even close.  Breath and life and health are infinitely more legitima
te
> goals than corporate expansion.  Human freedom and dignity can't be valued on
> the same scale as stock portfolios.  Making deals, shipping stuff, globalizin
g
> the economy is a sometimes useful, often destructive preoccupation of a small
,
> self-important minority of the human race.  The environment is our life suppo
rt
> system.  There is just no comparison.
>
> Thinking there is, thinking that trade is an end, not a means, not even
> thinking about what the ends might be, that is the fatal lunacy of the WTO.
> Sane people will be standing outside the Seattle meeting, protesting.
>
> (Donella Meadows is an adjunct professor at Dartmouth College and director of
> the Sustainability Institute in Hartland, Vermont.)