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USSR was worse than West
• 2.5 X air pollution of U.S. (per GNP)
• 20% water unsafe
• 1/3 of arable land affected by acid rain
• Etc., etc.
Why USSR was worse
• Heavy industry
• Expand agriculture
• “Inexhaustible” resources
• Legitimacy, self-sufficiency through technology
• Sacrifice for defense
Why USSR was worse
• Leadership technicians; questioning prevented
• Little free opposition
• Secrecy; lack of enforcement
• Central planning insensitive
• Only capitalism harms nature
Aral Sea• Once the 4th largest inland body
of water in the world. A series of dams was built to irrigate cotton.
• Aral Sea reduced to about 25% of its 1960 volume, 4x salinity wiped out the fishery.
• Pollutants became airborne as dust, causing significant local health problems.
Aral Sea
Amu Darya Size ofAral Sea
KaraKumCanal
Environmental damage estimatedat $1.25 -$2.5 billion a year.
Interbasin water transfers(river diversions)
BLACK SEA
Sea ofAzov
Don R.
Crimea
Ukraine
Georgia
Turkey
Dnieper R.
Danube R.
Bosporus
Russia
Romania
MoldovaDniester R.
Bulg.
Cyanide disasterAustralian-owned goldmine in Romania, 2000
80% of fish in Tisza River / wetlands died, spill to Danube
Gabcikovo Dams,Slovakia
Conflict, protests betweenSlovakia and Hungary
over diversion of Danube River
Clear-cutting in Siberia
Japanese and South Korean companies take
advantage of “fire sale”
International campaign toprotect Amur Tiger
along Chinese border
Toxic military bases
Abandoned Sovietmilitary bases in Eastern
Europe have toxicwastes (like U.S.bases elsewhere.)
Uranium mining
Roma (Gypsy) kidsplaying on radioactivemill tailings fromSoviet uranium mine in Pécs, Hungary
Kyshtym waste disaster, 1957
– Explosion at Soviet weapons factory forces evacuation of over 10,000 people in Ural Mts.
– Area size of Rhode Island still uninhabited; thousands of cancers reported
Orphans
“It Can’t Happen Here”
• U.S. reaction to Chernobyl, 1986– Blamed on Communism, graphite reactor
• Also Soviet reaction to Three-Mile Island, 1979– Blamed on Capitalism, pressurized-water reactor
• No technology 100% safe– Three-Mile Island bubble almost burst
Chernobyl’s political fallout
• Secrecy stimulated glasnost, environmental opposition
• Stimulated nationalism in Ukraine, Belarus, other republics that lost clean-up workers.
• Questioning of the heart of technocratic power
• USSR collapsed within 5 years.
Positives since end of USSR• Democratization: NGOs, data
• Decentralization: local sensitivity
• Deindustrialization of old areas
• Expanded national parks
• Protection laws stronger by 1993
Negatives since end of USSR• Financial difficulties; jobs stressed
• Reduced monitoring, enforcement
• Increased affluence, cars, waste
• Profit motive; foreign firms
• Putin dismantled agency, 2002
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