Redaksi

Renungan kita kali ini dimulai dari penjelasan M. S. Swaminathan, President of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, seorang ahli genetika, dan sekali gus Bapak Revolusi Hijau India, berikut ini :

“Gandhi, in his day, favored what he called "swadesh" -- self-reliance. He wanted people to adopt technologies that were appropriate at that time. He spoke not of mass production, but of "production by masses." Mass production meant replacement of people with machines. His concept was that science was the search for truth. He wanted India to be self-sufficient in food and textiles. He referred to the "god of bread," which must prevail in every home and hut. He was against exporting raw cotton to the UK and getting back finished textiles. So Gandhi emphasized the economics of human dignity.

People should be earning their own daily bread, not be given it, not become beggars. He wanted to improve the productivity of the soil without doing damage. He was an early ecologist, promoting nonviolence toward nature and toward each other.”

Sekarang ini yang dikejar di mana-mana ialah pertumbuhan, yang memerlukan dukungan pasokan energi yang terus meningkat, dalam arti konsumsi per kapita.

Dalam bulan September 2007 nanti akan diluncurkan suatu program 3-tahun di UNESCO Bangkok melalui pertemuan dengan tema Ethics of Energy Technologies in Asia and the Pacific.

Sebelumnya Prof. Liek Wilardjo sudah mengatakan :”Pumpun perhatian KBN selama ini terlalu sempit. ... Dengan munculnya pro-kontra PLTN, mestinya ancaman isotop-isotop radioaktif dan radiotoksik terhadap flora, fauna termasuk manusia serta lingkungannya di seluruh biosfer diberi perhatian yang serius. Ratusan jenis radioisotop itu tidak akan ada kalau manusia tidak mengoperasikan PLTN-fissi. Aktivitas ratusan jenis radioisotop itu teramat sangat tinggi dan meningkat terus, padahal banyak di antaranya yang berumur panjang sekali, dan TPA yang terandalkan belum ada”.•

Amru