Dilemma

[Denis Frith]

The governments of countries such as India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, China and others with large poor populations are facing an intractable dilemma. They are under pressure to do such things for the poor as provide electricity, potable water, sanitation and other basic services. This comes at the ecological cost of using coal and other natural resources. So they will have to try to implement measures that will deal with pollution of land, sea, air and people together with rising sea levels and other manifestations of climate disruption and ocean acidification and warming.

Ironically, it is the developed Western countries that have exacerbeted this problem by achieving economic growth at the expense of using up natural resources, producing irrevocable waste and devastating the environment.

The global population growth is unsustainable for fundamental physical reasons. The continuing high rate of consumption of natural resources to provide basic needs is not possible.

This, of course, is coupled with the irrevocable aging of the vast infrastructure (from cities down to iPads) that people have become so dependent on. So even the well off in the developed countries will have to cope with the dilemma  in dur course.

 

Denis Frith