What's the World Coming To?

Just three examples from recent reading: Asia columnist, Banyan, in last week's Economist, as s/he was preparing for another assignment. Much economic development and improvement of people's lives across much of the region. Flip side: greenhouse gases produced by this coal-based growth. And: "[d]evelopment is laying waste to the region’s natural richness. The Chinese miracle is built on a raw, bulldozed landscape of unrelenting horror. In Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines, once-vast stands of virgin forest are gone. Laos and Myanmar (“Elephints a-pilin’ teak”) are now going the same way. Asia’s sushi fad bodes ill for the bluefin tuna even on the far side of the world." Also because of the piece's conclusion, "political stuntedness is now Asia's biggest problem," one really has to wonder who/what is going to do anything about this dark side of Asia's development. See also Jonathan Mirsky's review of Bill Hayton's Vietnam: The Rising Dragon, in the June 24 issue of the New York Review of Books. "The environment is a deepening disaster. The rivers surrounding Ho Chi Minh City are 'biologically dead,' and the air in Hanoi is poisonous ... Sewage and other waste in both cities are dumped raw into the rivers and landfills and eventually poison the local water supplies ... people unsuccessfully complained about such pollution for years." It then continues: "but now that the urban middle classes are up in arms about smells and tastes, action is slowly being taken." I'm no expert on the rise of environmental protection in the West, but the little I do know suggests that this, pressure from within society, played an important part. In Asia, then, it may in part be a matter of timing: will pressure from within society become significant enough soon enough for meaningful action to have a chance to turn things around? Not that it has worked so well in the West, for example the United States. Last week's Economist also had a nice piece about the thriving rail freight sector there. That freight railroads are doing well should be good news (better carry stuff on trains than on trucks, at least). Of course, "coal is the biggest single cargo," which also brings us to one of the main reasons climate-change legislation got moved off Washington's agenda recently: resistance from coal-producing states. More than enough reason, therefore, to start reading the blog of someone whose concerns about these developments are based on a deep knowledge not only of the politics but also the science behind them.