Re: Pollution and ideology

[Katherine Elaine Beavis <beavis@xxxxxx>]

If I may suggest a good book on environmentalism and left-right
political ideology:  Environmentalism and the Future of Progressive
Politics, by Robert Paehlke
It supports the basic argument that the tendency to pollute is not
related to either capitalism or socialism but rather to the push for
economic growth.
If anyone has further ideas on the nature of non-polluting governing
structures and alternative (sustainable) economies, please reply.

Katherine Beavis
School of Resource and Environmental Management
Simon Fraser University
Vancouver, B.C. V5N 1L6
beavis@xxxxxx
>
>
> To B Rosser
>
> The point about the ozone layer, overfishing etc was that these
> were indifferently caused by both economic systems.
> As to air pollution, one has to be cautious about saying such and
> such an area has the worst air pollution in the world. The contendees
> for this title vary from year to year. I have visited the forest
> areas of Bohemia and the Black Forest that are supposed to be
> so heavily polluted.  No doubt to people with the appropriate
> biological training and local knowledge the damage is evident,
> but I would not have noticed it. On the other hand, when traveling
> accross Canada by train I came accross and area where the forest
> vanished to be replaced by a sort of moonscape of bare rocks and
> erroded gulleys. The only similar sight I had ever seen was
> when passing through recently glaciated territory in high
> Norwegian passes. It turned out that I was downwind of Sudbury,
> whose nickel smelter was until closure the worlds largest
> emitter of SO2.
>
> I am not denying that Poland, the GDR and CSSR were copious
> emitters of S02, merely that wheter and economy is capitalist or
> socialist has no relevance to the ecological damage caused.
>
> This depends upon contingent factors, population density, sulphur
> contents of fuels and ores, prevailing winds etc, and also upon
> there is sufficient political opposition to the pollution to cause
> certain branches of the economy to be closed down.,
>
> In Britiain we had terrible S02 pollution in the last century and in
> the first 2rds of this one. It culminated in the great smogs of the
> 1950s in one of which 3000 Londoners died of S02 poisoning in a fortnight.
> This resulted in the Clean Air Act, whose main effect was to divert coal
> burning from homes and factories to powerstations with very high chimneys.
> This ensured that the S02 was blown out to sea to fall on Norway instead.
> But of course there was no political pressure in the UK to deal with that.
>
> Only the establishment of the appropriate international authorities with
> regulatory powers and sanctions that bight has any prospect of controlling
> air pollution.
>
> Paul Cockshott
>