The Rich Waste, the Poor Pay
Using, among others, data from the World Bank and the UN, US researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, have shown that between 1961 and 2000, at least 8.7 trillion US Dollars of damage to the environment was caused, almost entirely by the richer countries. The estimates are based on effects of intensive agriculture, deforestation, overfishing, destruction of mangroves, the ozon hole and global warming. The burden is largely carried by poorer countries; it amounts to more than the foreign debt of these countries which stands at 1.8 trillion Dollars. The report was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the US. For further details click here.
January 23rd, 2008 at 9:57 am
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February 8th, 2008 at 11:17 am
[...] Japan is not the only sinner, Norway plans to kill 1052 minke whales in 2008 as a measure to manage fish stocks, the same quota as in 2007. Could this be behind the Japanese whaling program as well? I suggest we all cut back on our seafood consumption to save the whales. On the other hand, there may be problems with this too: we might need more soya products which are best grown in what are now rainforests in the Amazon and Indonesia. Which shows that preaching about the “majesty” of the creatures we kill etc. does not lead anywhere. We need an approach that solves the economic-social-political problems of the world leading to enormous waste in some countries and hunger in others (see here). [...]