Dear All,
While going through an artilce by James Jacob on Implications for carbon sink projects, I came across this hillarious statement that "Poverty Breeds Pollution" I could not make the head or tail of it!! If this is true then how poor are all those mining giants, power generation industires, chemical industries, etc etc...... for that matter how poor are the US, EU, Japan etc etc who are baranded as the major contributors of GHG and deforestation!! Suggest......
Regards
Kanna
Replies
Dear All,
unless we accept there is a problem, we cannot find out a way to solve it. Why should we close our eyes to the fact that both poverty and pollution are results of ignorance and lack of commitment by able people who shun their responsibilities, be it the government or so called literate people (like me). Whether poverty breeds pollution I am not sure but both are just exponentially increasing since we do not care. When slum-dog millionaire won the Oscar there were many who did not like the portrayal of India that way but it is a fact that all that was shown in the film exists in India. Well does the government provide drainage system to areas where people do not pay theire taxes? Poverty surely sustains pollution if not breeding it.
Dear Mr. Ram,
Thank you for your response and for the information. I'm ready to take the rest of the paragraph but not the line which opens the paragraph! Poverty in itself has too many dimensions and one of which I feel is political motivation behind it. Do you think the carbon / ecological foot print of an ultra-poor who are found in those dirty and squalid slums is more than an average American / European. Please be savy while making such statements!
Then what do you say about POSCO, Vedanta, Tata etc which are now after mining and building a port near the marine sanctuary in Odisha. Whose stomach do you think they are going to feed? Relinace has engulfed more than 100 ha of mangrove forest near my home town Kakinada. Do you think Ambanis are that poor?
I would be more happy if James wrote it that the "affluent pollute the environment and poverty may also contribute to environmental pollution and degradation" but not the other way.
May I call your attention that I'm not talking here about the scientific validity of the report but if James is so convinced that affluence is the reason for pollution and environmental degradation, he shouldn't have opened the paragraph with "Poverty...............'
Hope you understand my point!
Kanna
For those who stll have doubts, here is an additional reference:
poverty and pollution - global perspective
All comments here, have unfortunately been taken out of context. Shri Kanna Kumar Siripurapu forgot to give us the full sentence, as well as the following lines which clearly explains what James Jacob means by 'poverty'.
Here, I reproduce the paragraph for the benefit of all:
"It is a known fact that poverty breeds pollution and environmental degradation, which in turn aggravates poverty. But affluence too has contributed towards the present poor state of the planet’s health, through over-consumption of energy and resources. The average per capita gasoline consumption in the US during 1997 was 1.26 gallons/day/person4, contributing to a large per capita CO2 emission of 5.3 metric tons (MT) of C/person/yr compared to roughly 0.3 MT of C/person/yr in India (Table 1). Similarly, in terms of consumption of commercial energy or even food, the rich countries are far above the poor countries. For example,the mean commercial energy consumption in the US during 1997 was about 350 giga joules (GJ)/person/yr, whereas this was as low as about 13 GJ/person/yr in India. The annual per capita consumption of meat comes to about 123 kg/person/yr in the US, while this is a meagre 3.4 kg/person/yr in India (Figure 3). It may be noted that on an average, it takes about 1790 l of water to produce 1 kg of wheat compared to 9680 l to produce 1 kg of beef. Thus the rich countries consume more resources and energy than the poorer nations of the world, where bulk of the world’s population lives."
From the paragraph, it is clear that James Jacob, a scientist at the Rubber Research Institute of India, is talking about financial poverty. He then goes on to explain how the rich pollute much more than the poor.
Now, as far as the poor are concerned, it should not be forgotten that the poorer you are, the more you are concerned with having the means to feed your/your family's stomach, and the less the inclination you have to think about ways to reduce pollution. Why do you think that the ultra-poor are found in dirty and squalid slum settlements? Why don't you go and talk to some of those poor people to get a better idea?
Dear Firends,
"Poverty" does not mean, in its broader sense, the money power, or purchasing capacity alone. It includes refinement of minds of citizens (in a national boundary, or other identifiable social boundaries). Real estate people, and industries aiming at increasing money power od stake holders are culturally poor, and the land space intervened by them are polluted (also the minds of people who receive their favours).
Rohit Pathania said:
Well what you said is not something surprising. It is in the same vein as the World Bank Economists arguing for the poor countries to be polluted as a clean environment should be deemed a luxury good! But truth of the matter is that what really constitutes wealth, what really should development mean are two questions that need to be debated at every level now. The time is apt for that to be done, else all the interest generated in the minds of the people can be rendered waste.
i share same views as kann, i think he spelt it wrong it should have been "poverty breeds population".
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