issue 235 - September 1992
How to keep the North on top
Always draw the earth with the North on top.
If forced to admit the North's responsibility for the world's environmental mess concede magnanimously and at once. Then follow up smartly with a sentence starting with the word 'population', as in: "Of course Northern industry creates acid rain. Population and pollution are ecology's biggest problems."
Always use different scales when drawing graphs that compare the North's and the South' s responsibility for environmental damage, to make the South's fault look relatively bigger, and the North's relatively smaller, than it really is.
Always talk about the North and South as though they were equal halves. For example, talk about 80% of the rain forests being cut down by people in the South as if they are entitled to cut down only 50%.
Always refer to the rich as "top" people as in "the top billion". The poorest people are of course the bottom billion.
Stress that the population of the United States is 0.25 billion. But in terms of ecological damage it is 12.5 billion - if we take the average Indian's consumption as the norm. This is because the average American consumes 50 times as much as the average Indian.
All illustrations by CLIVE OFFLEY
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