摘要：On the international stage, the movement of environmental issues to the forefront should come as little surprise. As the paradigm of East versus West becomes overshadowed by North versus South, there is an increasing perception that the efforts of Third World nations for sustained economic growth threaten both to exacerbate the ecological damage already being wrought by developed nations' activities and to conflict with the desire for ecological protection that has emerged as a major political issue in developed countries in the past fifteen years. There is a growing realization that the distinction between national and international environmental problems is, at best, artificial. I Coupled with the new awareness of the global import of environmental problems in the minds of many is the old faith in technology as the primary means to address these problems. At its core, this faith has as a creed that the ultimate problem of resource depletion in this finite world is not imminent. It can be forestalled by technological advances, as the one limitless resource on the planet is human intellect
