[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.However, there is no evidenceyet of a general relative delinking, much less of an absolute delinking (as there exists for SO 2emissions) between growth of the economy and environmental impact.12Nevertheless, that wealth provides the means to correct environmental damage and that wealthypeople are environmentally more conscious because they can afford to care about quality-of-lifefile:///C|/Archivos%20de%20programa/eMule/Incoming/Stanley%20Fis.Jameson%20(Ed)%201998%20The%20Cultures%20Of%20Globalization.htmlissues are widely held beliefs.To many environmentalists and ecologists from the South, suchbeliefs provoke outrage, even when the speaker himself, Finance Minister of India Dr.ManmohanSingh, comes from the South.Singh justified programs of trade and market liberalization on thegrounds that they would generate resources for cleaning up the environment.13Let me ask now, Which are the reasons for the growth of environmentalism: the actions taken, orthe concerns expressed over the state of the environment due to human action? Some authorsbelieve that the growth of environmentalism in rich countries is explained mainly by a post-1968shift to "postmaterialist" cultural values.This optimistic position, which takes "dematerialization"for granted, is known as Inglehart's postmaterialist thesis.I do not agree with it, or rather, it seemsto me that it only accounts for one variety of environmentalism.Inglehart accepts that in theaffluent countries there is worry about the deterioration of some environmental indicators, andabout the increasing part of GNP that must be spent on "protective," "de--314-fensive," "corrective," or "mitigatory" expenditures against environmental damage (as shown byLeipert); nevertheless, quite apart from "objective" environmental impacts and costs, Inglehart'sthesis is that the cultural shift toward "subjective" postmaterialist values is making some societiesmore sensitive toward environmental issues.14 Indeed, mainstream environmental and resourceeconomists in the United States 15 had proposed that the demand for environmental amenitiesincreases with income, and that, implicitly, the poor are "too poor to be green."In trying to disentangle the sources of support for environmentalism in various countries,Inglehart describes the environment of the Netherlands as relatively "pristine," a surprisingassessment because this is a country with a population density of four hundred persons per squarekilometer and, roughly speaking, nearly as many cows, pigs, and cars as humans.Thismisrepresentation allows him to attribute Dutch environmentalism mostly to "postmaterialism."The Scandinavian countries are also classified by Inglehart as relatively "pristine" environments.16They are certainly less populated than the Netherlands.Scandinavian environmentalism isattributed by Inglehart mostly to "postmaterialism" with no regard to the following facts: theireconomies are partly based on extraction of natural resources; one of them ( Sweden) has anexcessive number of nuclear power stations relative to its population; they have been subject toradiation from Chernobyl; and they have been subject to acidification from external sources.There are then as many material reasons to become environmentalist in Scandinavia as in theNetherlands or in Germany.There are even more reasons to become environmentalist in poorcountries or in poor regions whose environmental space is being used to the benefit of the rich.Varieties of Environmentalismfile:///C|/Archivos%20de%20programa/eMule/Incoming/Stanley%20Fis.Jameson%20(Ed)%201998%20The%20Cultures%20Of%20Globalization.htmlAs we have seen, the postmaterialist thesis explains environmental movements in rich countriesby the fact that economic distribution conflicts are no longer so acute.This leads to a generationalshift toward new values, which include an increasing appreciation for environmental amenitiesbecause of the declining marginal utility of abundant, easily obtained material commodities.Inglehart's thesis can be criticized if we take the position that economic growth goes together withenvironmental degradation.Hence, in rich countries there exists a materialist environmentalismagainst dangerous-315-or annoying "effluents of affluence." 17 The postmaterialist thesis has also been criticized becauseit is easy (through opinion polls) to find evidence for a strong interest in the environment also inpoor countries.18 There is indeed evidence for the "environmentalism of the poor" not only inopinion polls but in many social conflicts in history and at present.19 Sometimes such conflictsare identified as environmental by the actors themselves; at other times, such conflicts have beenexpressed in nonenvironmental idioms -thus, seringueiros in Acre in the late 1980s were membersof a union, had some links to Christian local movements inspired by "liberation theology," andbecame known as environmentalists, perhaps to their own surprise.In poor countries, environmentalism is sometimes supposed to have been imported and organizedby the postmaterial environmentalism of the North, inspired by people with incomes high enoughto allow them to worry about postmaterial quality-of-life issues rather than about livelihood andsurvival.Hugo Blanco, a former peasant leader in Peru, wrote in 1991:At first sight, environmentalists or conservationists are nice, slightly crazy guyswhose main purpose in life is to prevent the disappearance of blue whales orpandas.The common people have more important things to think about, forinstance how to get their daily bread.Sometimes they are taken to be not so crazybut rather smart guys who, in the guise of protecting endangered species, haveformed so-called NGOs to get juicy sums of dollars from abroad&.Such views aresometimes true.However, there are in Peru a very large number of people who areenvironmentalists.Of course, if I tell such people, you are ecologists, they mightreply, "ecologist your mother," or words to that effect.Let us see, however.Isn't thevillage of Bambamarca truly environmentalist, which has time and again foughtvaliantly against the pollution of its water from mining? Are not the city of Ilo andthe surrounding villages which are being polluted by the Southern Peru CopperCorporation truly environmentalist? Is not the village of Tambo Grande in Piuraenvironmentalist, when it rises like a closed fist and is ready to die in order toprevent strip-mining in its valley? Also, the people of the Mantaro Valley who sawtheir little sheep die, because of the smoke and waste from La Oroya smelter [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]