Poverty Is the Real Pollution

This web site has stayed out of the controversy over Bjorn Lomborg’s book, The Skeptical Environmentalist, though from the reviews and discussion, there is much it would agree with as well as some parts it would disagree. We wholeheartedly agree, however, with Lomborg’s comments to the BBC about the United Nations’ recent Global Environment Outlook-3 report which complained about the increasingly negative impact that humanity is having on the world’s ecosystems. The BBC quoted Lomborg as replying,

We think things are getting worse and worse but actually if we look at the facts we see that fewer and fewer people are starving, we’re better able to handle pollution in the developed world (for instance, air pollution) and in the developing world, it will be the same when they get sufficiently rich.

What we need to realize is that the real pollution problem is the pollution of poverty; when people are poor they cannot take care of the environment 10 or a 100 years down the line.

Eliminate the sort of abject poverty present in the developing world and many of the environmental problems would correct themselves as those societies were able to devote more of their resources to environmental protection.

Source:

Poverty is ‘real pollution’. The BBC, May 22, 2002