A guest post by Roger Osborne
On this day, 11th May, in 1971 the UN Secretary General U Thant met a group of distinguished scientists who presented him with “A message to our 3.5 billion neighbours on planet earth” – a strong environmental statement raising concerns about environmental deterioration, resource depletion, hunger, and war – which together presented an unprecedented common danger to all of humanity.
During 1970 a small conference had been organised in Menton on the French Riviera. Probably the first “Environmental Conference” in Europe it involved a meeting between the organizer Alfred Hassler of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, Buddhist peace activists Thich Nhat Hanh and Sister Chan Khong, and six other distinguished scientists.
Chan Khong, remembering the event in 2016, said “We met to address the damage that was being done to the Earth through human misuse of technology, the penetration into food-chains of poisonous substances and the mounting exploitation of natural resources.”
Together, through their discussions, they crafted the an open letter. Known as “The Menton Message” or “The Menton Statement” this was widely circulated amongst biologists and environmental scientists. It rapidly attracted over over 2000 signatures, including four Nobel prizewinners and numerous very distinguished and respected scientists of the day.
The following year, on May 11th 1971, in New York a copy of the statement was presented to UN Secretary General U Thant by six of the authors. It was then published as the lead item in the UNESCO Journal “Courier” in the July 1971 issue and reached a wider audience within the UN organisation and beyond.
U Thant responded to the delegation:
“I believe that mankind is at last aware of the fact that there is a delicate equilibrium of physical and biological phenomena on and around the earth which cannot be thoughtlessly disturbed as we race along the road of technological development…
This global concern in the face of a grave common danger, which carries the seeds of extinction for the human species, may well prove to be the elusive force which can bind men together.
The battle for human survival can only be won by all nations joining together in a concerted drive to preserve life on this planet.”
Why it Matters
The Statement concludes with four urgent action points “not as panaceas, but as holding actions to keep our situation from deteriorating past the point of no return”
In summary they called for a moratorium on new technological developments, widespread application of existing pollution control technology, a decrease in consumption by privileged classes, and abolition and destruction of nuclear arsenals and chemical and biological weapons.
So right at the beginning of the modern environmental movement there was seen a strong linkage between ecological issues and peace and disarmament, together with a focus on social issues of equality and rights.
What Happened Next
The message, strongly endorsed by the scientific elite, played a key role in preparing the ground for the UN Summit on the Human Environment which took place in Stockholm the following year in June 1972.
The Stockholm summit lead to the creation of “Environment” ministries in many governments and the establishment of the UN Environmental Program. These lead to 50 years of talking about “the environment” and little real action to address the fundamental issues the scientists were raising.
The scientific community published ever more mountains of papers attracting ever more research funding to describe in increasing detail the complexity of the interlocking environmental problems.
The plain people of the world seeing all this activity assumed that “they” would solve the problems and merrily kept calm and carried on consuming.
Successive generations of environmental activists kept on marching and protesting at this and that and thus many became burnt-out and retired to cultivate their gardens.
Whilst “the environment” became the prime focus of “environmentalism”, the related issues identified in the Menton Message of the problems inherent in technological solutions, the need for peaceful coexistence rather than conflict, and the need for more equal distribution of of societal goods were somewhat sidelined.
Last year (2022) the UN held a Stockholm+50 Intergovernmental Conference hosted jointly by the Swedish and Kenyan Governments. The original Menton Message was updated and reissued as “A Letter to Fellow Citizens of Planet Earth”.
Which gets us to where we are today.
Rinse and Repeat.
(On a personal note U Thant was the only global leader who my teenage self through the 60s regarded as worth anything. Being a dedicated peace activist in a position of power, he was far from the normal self-serving politicians. It is interesting to consider whether the authors of Blueprint for Survival were aware of the Menton Message – it certainly seems likely.