Sam Pawlett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>At best, costlier energy means that less developed countries will not be
>able
>to industrialize the way the North has: through cheap energy. The only way
>will be for the North to decrease consumption. Because of acute capital
>shortage, countries of the South will follow the cheapest energy supply for
>their industrialization efforts and the subsequent bid to raise their
>standards of living to Northern levels. This means burning coal and
>biomass (there are new coal-fired boilers coming online almost daily in
>places like Indonesia.) This will (and is) wreaking havoc on the global
>ecology and environment.
Why should we assume that Third World countries, as they industrialize, will
not act to limit environmental damage? The population of the now rich
countries may not have a monopoly over environmental concerns. If the
infamous statement that, under capitalism, "the country that is more
developed industrially only shows to the less developed the image of its own
future" (Marx) has any bit of validity, then we'd expect the newly
industrialized countries to take some action -- set environmental standards,
and try to enforce them. After all, the core of the environmental movement
is located, well, in the core countries.
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