Ecological debt is a term used since 1992 by some environmental organizations from the Global south. The first one to use this term was the Instituto de Ecologia Politica from Chile (M.L.Robleto and W. Marcelo, Deuda Ecologica, IEP, Santiago de Chile, 1992). J.M. Borrero, from Colombia, a lawyer, wrote a book on the ecological debt in 1994 (J.M.Borrero, La Deuda Ecologica, FIPMA, Cali 1994). This referred to the environmental liabilities of Northern countries for the excessive per capita production of greenhouse gases, historically and at present. Campaigns on the Ecological Debt were launched since 1997 by Accion Ecologica of Ecuador and Friends of the Earth as documented in www.deudaecologica.org
Read more about Ecological Debt: History
Famous quotes containing the words ecological and/or debt:
“It seems to me that there must be an ecological limit to the number of paper pushers the earth can sustain, and that human civilization will collapse when the number of, say, tax lawyers exceeds the world’s total population of farmers, weavers, fisherpersons, and pediatric nurses.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)
“It is a well-settled principle of the international code that where one nation owes another a liquidated debt which it refuses or neglects to pay the aggrieved party may seize on the property belonging to the other, its citizens or subjects, sufficient to pay the debt without giving just cause of war.”
—Andrew Jackson (1767–1845)