nimh wrote:Finn d'Abuzz wrote:I don't think we are actually too far apart on this, but I have to say that using a comparison between the Russias of 1980 and 1910 to assert that the Soviet union was extreme in its affluence and consumption is ridiculous. [..]
From a baseline where there is no industrialization, it goes without saying that with increased production there is increased pollution.
Well, quite. And though many developing countries already have blossoming/sprawling industries, much of the developing world
is still in a pre-industrialized stage, like Tsarist Russia was. To assert, as Fox did, that once these areas and countries get more prosperous, the problem of pollution will be "solved" is therefore ridiculous, because said prosperity will for at least a large part be fuelled by industrialization. The example of the Soviet Union actually shows that pollution there, too, came with increased prosperity and industrialization. So instead of refuting the assertion that more affluence and consumption will (at least initially) result in more pollution, as you claimed it did, it actually underlines it.
Of course, the developing countries theoretically have the benefit of the lessons we've learned. Over time, we have come to produce in cleaner ways - you could hope that countries starting or progressing on the industrialization path now use the cleaner tools straight away. Problem is, much of this cleaner production is also more expensive for the company involved than the old-fashioned dirty production. Much of it is only used here because we've put laws and regulations about it in place. Third World governments do not have the luxury to make much of such demands to (either domestic or foreign) companies. Employment and investment are hard enough to come by as it is.
Separate from this is the issue that even our present-day "cleaner" stuff - say, our cars - are still polluting enough for it to be a environmental disaster if everyone in the world would have one. That means either a much more drastic push towards cleaner technology (in this example, electric or hydrogen-based cars or whatever one could come up with) has to take place, or we do need to check our consumption behavior. Probably both.
You neglected to include the following, essential element of my argument in your quote:
However from the baseline of an already industrialized world, it is not, at all, axiomatic that increased production results in increased pollution, and it is affluence (enabled by democracy) which can and will lead to a change in the original paradigm.
It is highly improbable that any developing nation will duplicate the experience of Tsarist Russia's move into the industrialized world, unless it also duplicates its dictatorial experience.
The improvement of technology over the last 100 years alone will result in a lesser degree of pollution, however it would be ridiculous for me to place any real emphasis on this element of the equation.
The key element is a political and economic environment wherein a country's citizen will have the luxury to consider the state of their physical environment, and the freedom and power to influence their government's stewardship of that environment.
This is the distinguishing feature between the United States and Western Europe, and the former Soviet Union and China.
While heavy industrialization, by any standard, existed and exists in the former Soviet Union and China, it stretchs, to the breaking point, the use of the terms to suggest that during this period they have exhibited affluence and conspicuous consumption, and they certainly have not exhibited democracy.
It is not coincidence that where consumption is increasing in China, so too are economic reforms and a minimally registered reduction in absolute political control by the center.
As I've previously argued, industrialization (in one form or another) is here to stay, and is in the future of almost every nation on earth. The notion that limitations can somehow be imposed on industrialization and by extension increased affluence and consumption is unsustainable. Who will enforce such limitations? The US and Western Europe? The UN? Some league of enlightened Third World Nations?
Even less likely is a viable global consensus on a voluntary reduction.
Even developing
democratic nations are not about to limit the growth of their economies and preclude growth of the personal affluence of their people to join in such a pact, for the benefit of the nations that have already achieved this status.
A plan for strict global limitation on industrialization and consumption has virtually no hope of success, but any chance that it might have would depend upon the developing nations stabilizing the level of affluence around the world by reducing their own standards of living while subsidizing those of the developing nations. The only scenario where such an incredibly drastic move might be made is one where a global environmental disaster has actually developed and with direct and catastrophic results: ie the deaths of millions throughout the world. This is the stuff of speculative fiction, and hardly something to plan around.
The developed nations must continue their effort to reduce pollution and, it is probably the case that they need to increase restrictions to force the sort of technological developments that will become tomorrow's solutions.
Even here there is a fine line to tread, and reasoned educational efforts and dynamic leadership is required.
At the same time democracy and economic reform must be vigorously promoted and supported around the world. Dictators are not going to voluntarily limit industrialization or adopt environmentally sound policies. Subsistence level people are not going to think about the impact of a decimated rain forest when they need to clear stretchs of woodlands to establish poorly yielding fields.
There is a thick thread running through the environmental movement that holds that consumption is bad and that affluence is destructive. I would argue against these holdings, but whether they or I am right, this is not a message upon which successful environmental policy can be built. Any time your objective requires a rapid, dramatic and fundamental change in the way people think and behave, you're destined to fail.
