Consequences
For every action a reaction. There are consequences that result from decisions. Might not an intelligent individual, or a group, or a representative body of government thoughtfully give a moment to consider what might result from actions taken today that have their costs on the morrow? Too reasonable, entirely. Particularly when the end game is a stretch toward success and perceived success and resulting enrichment exact their own costs.The costs borne not by the decision-makers, but by others: bystanders, onlookers, dispensable others. Not that it's any great surprise that the surging Indian and Chinese economies have exacted their costs in human health and environmental degradation in the past. And not that these unfortunate by-products haven't been noted and duly regretted. But a juggernaut once in motion is most difficult to bring to a shuddering halt.
Resulting in a signal attenuation of original purpose. Which remains and will continue to remain the vital matter at hand. This is progress. The wealth of a nation. Often spoken of as its people. Meaning what - that the population, the valued people must be heralded into the atmosphere of mutually beneficial progress. Persuaded that they too will prosper as the State does. They become the enables, they become the mass beneficiaries. But of what?
And it's true, they do. They become enablers, and in the process become enabled to procure consumer goods hitherto available only to the elevated, the wealthy, the aristocracy of the nation. In embracing progress and greater national wealth, there is an unfortunate surrender of other less recognized and at the moment, less valued attributes of existence. Like clean, potable water, fresh air, uncontaminated foodstuffs, environmental soundness.
The consequences of the Three Gorges Dam is the collapse of earthworks, threatening the stability of nearby villages, and the contamination of water sources, threatening the delivery of power as well. The consequences of unbridled growth of a communist version of capitalism is the polluting of vital waterways through chemical spill-off of factory wastes.
An identified rise in birth defects as a result of pollution; babies born with cleft palates, 'extra' digits. Babies born with serious disabilities in China are surging, rather complicating the vision of a country responding to its citizens' needs. Where mining for coal - the country's most common energy source whose chimney-belching atmospheric particles cause additional pulmonary ailments and early deaths - also causes a marked increase in birth defects.
Sixteen of the twenty most polluted cities in the world are located within China. China's cities are like none others in the world for density of population on a magnified scale of plenitude. The rate of birth defects throughout the country has increased from 104.9 per 10,000 in 2001 to 145.5 in 2006. Defects range from cleft palate, neural tube defects, added digits, congenital heart disease and hydrocephaly.
Noxious fumes from coke and chemical industries, poor nutrition and familial intermarriage are also pointed out as causal effects of growing birth defect rates. A World Bank study revealed that 460,000 Chinese die prematurely annually from the results of polluted air and dirty water.
Costs and consequences. Haste lays waste.
Labels: Environment, Realities
posted by Pieface @ Tuesday, October 30, 2007
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