Paraphrase for the Day II:
Iraq’s environment is a mess. The Tigris and Euphrates Rivers are open sewers. But the environment isn’t an important issue when you might get a bullet in the head stepping outside your door.
— Azzam Alwash, CEO Nature Iraq a conservation NGO in Baghdad.
Story to be published shortly.
Stephen Leahy, International Environmental Journalist 
Inherently, it is the comfortable, rich societies that have the luxury to be concerned with environmentalism. Too many pre-industrialized societies feel economic growth is better than a sustainable planet.
I’m not sure that’s the case at all. Often the leaders of pre-industrial societies push, and pushed by rich societies, to favour growth over all else. Local folks just want to have decent life and are far more interested in sustainablity.
But in any event all economies depend on a healthy environment.
I’d be willing to bet that the vast majority of people in third world countries would be willing to trade 50 years of fast economic growth, industrialization, and subsequent societal stability in exchange for some less than perfect environmental conditions.
I’m not saying it’s a perfect world, but I think it’s more than plausible that’s how people feel. Hopefully instead, they’ll try to learn from our mistakes.