Comments on: Is Africa underpolluted?

By: NPOV

NPOV — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 04:52:38 +0000

The problem with migrating dirty industries to “LDCs” is that often end up being more polluting than they were in first world countries they were established, hence increasing the total amount of pollution, which is hardly something we want to see. This is especially unjustifiable when a particular company that is capable of building relatively clean factories and running them profitably in first world countries decides they’ll be more profitable elsewhere because they don’t have to comply to the same level of environmental regulations. I don’t see how anybody benefits from that (except perhaps aging shareholders who aren’t going to be around long enough to suffer an ill-effects). It’s one thing to build a factory in an “LDC” to make use of an excess supply of relatively low-skilled labour, which makes perfect economic sense (and gives the occupants of such countries a decent chance at gaining some skills and becoming significantly more productive), but you’ve already gained your extra profitability right there, so there should be no need to further boost it by taking advantage of lax government oversight of environmental damage.

By: Patrick

Patrick — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 01:02:18 +0000

I think the general point, Sinclair, is that Africa is underdeveloped, ie might be net better off with some more ostensibly harmful pollution from industrial plants, etc, rather than merely dumping waste:

Dirty’ Industries: Just between you and me, shouldn’t the World Bank be encouraging MORE migration of the dirty industries to the LDCs [Least Developed Countries]

That said there is merit in your different point, particularly as applied to South Australia – as long as it is not too close to the wineries :)

By: Pappinbarra Fox

Pappinbarra Fox — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 21:58:34 +0000

Too many policy pronouncements are intended to be last words, as if the puny mind of one individual suffices to solve tricky policy problems.
Worse, they are often mere projections of ego. Among newspaper columnists – and in this regard PIERS ACKERMAN et al are indistinguishable – this consists of a form of grunting intended to signal that the author belongs to the readers tribe.

This is one of the best discriptions of some journos that I have seen in a long time – I just wish I coul dhave thought of it.

By: Sinclair Davidson

Sinclair Davidson — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 20:38:24 +0000

Of course, Africa is not at all under-polluted. At least not those parts I’m familiar with. Unfortunately the pollution is of a very different kind than that of, say the US. In the US pollution is a by-product of economic activity, whereas in Africa a lot of the pollution is a by-product of decay and poverty.

Summers’ general point is good. There are parts of the world that would be excellent sites for waste (at an appropriate fee, including environmental costs). Africa might be one of those places. I’m told that parts of Australia would be excellent sites to store nuclear waste – but at the moment there is no support for that at any price. Another consideration is transport costs – transport infrastructure in Africa is poor and expensive. Such a scheme would require a massive investments before it could be implemented.