At 11:57 AM -0800 12/4/07, Kelly Stettner wrote:
>even though 1st worlders can lay claim to the highest material consumerism, we
>can also lay claim to the highest rate of governmental beauracracy (sp?) when
>it comes to pollution caps, environmental controls, waste water treatment
>facilities, and the skills, education and abilities to take care of our
>resources. We don't have villages where people defacate in the streams. We
>are cutting down on everything from fertilizer-use to driveway car-washing,
>improving our agricultural practices (no more cows wading in streams, etc.)
>and our stream bank care. 1st worlders lead the way in research and
>technologies that improve our ability to care for the natural world -- each of
>you posting from a 1st world country is living proof of that.
>
> Respectfully,
> Kelly Stettner
>
Wealth buys privileges, and great wealth buys great privileges. The West leads
because it can afford to. (I won't even touch the question of where that
wealth comes from.) It Third Worlders defecate in the streets, its not because
they are genetically inclined to do so. And if America's environment is
cleaning up, it is at least in some large part because we have exported much of
our polluting manufacturing processes to Third World countries. We're claiming
for ourselves the privilege of goods priced at a fraction of what they would
have cost to make in the US, and the benefits of a cleaner environment to boot.
We're giving them the privilege of dying on our behalf.
Back in 1991, Dr. Lawrence Summers, while Chief Economist at the World Bank,
signed off on an internal memo that asserted that the economically efficient
way to deal with toxic waste was to export it to countries with the lowest life
expectancy. Shock and outrage followed the leaking of the memo to the press,
Dr. Summers apologized for the "ironic statement," was promoted upward and the
world returned to normal. Except that Dr. Summers was perhaps prescient. Its
just that instead of merely exporting our toxic wastes (which we do by the
megaton, by the way), we exported the whole of the activity that generates much
of that toxic waste as well.
There's a lot to be said for human civilization. But to claim the fruits of
civilization as being born out of the innate abilities of First Worlders--many
of whom have come from the Third World, mind (what does it mean to be American,
any way?)--is perhaps at least unfair.
Boundaries and scales are relevant here as well.
Cheers,
-
Ashwani
Vasishth [EMAIL PROTECTED] (818) 677-6137
http://www.csun.edu/~vasishth/
http://www.myspace.com/ashwanivasishth
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