The connections of the global economy as currently designed are directed toward short-term exploitation of natural resources instead the development of sustainable, long-term economic relationships with natural resources. The result is the impoverishment of people who have had a close economic relationship with those resources.

For example, Pak Helman, on the island of Sumatra in Indonesia, used to earn the equivalent of one hundred dollars catching shrimp every week. More recently, however, since the jungles in his province have been aggressively logged so as to provide raw materials for the international market, his catch of shrimp has declined to only the equivalent of five dollars per week.

Pak Helman has responded by joining the progressive activist organization Greenpeace, in order to advocate for an end to the exploitation of his surroundings. We here in the United States, for the same reason, need to do the same thing, joining together with other people of progressive political persuasion in order to promote an economy that can continue beyond our own generation. (Source: New York Times, December 6, 2007)