Introduction - Comparing Environmental Policies in 16 Countries - page 2

protect the local birds. Soon it was read everywhere. The biggest example
of worldwide diffusion was the Environmental Decade of the 1970s. This
phenomenon was simultaneous in North America, Western Europe, and
other democracies. It even affected China, albeit 10 years later. Another
case was the concern with global warming, which spread rapidly. United
Nations scientists reached a consensus in 1985, and only three years later
scientists and government officials met in Toronto to organize action.
In 1992 nearly 200 countries assembled in Rio de Janeiro to sign a frame-
work treaty, and in another 5 years they approved the Kyoto Protocol to
limit greenhouse gases. However, speedy action did not guarantee success,
and cooperation stalled.
Although the environmental movement first swept the Western
industrial democracies, it soon diffused to developing countries and to
Communist ones. Nations like India and Brazil joined the effort. They
recognized that while they may have been less industrialized, they were
beginning to suffer polluted air and water from the factories they did have.
Moreover, such countries often had priceless natural treasures in their
remote mountains and river basins that deserved preservation as parks.
Some developing countries like Kenya and Costa Rica were natural Edens
with mountains, seacoasts, spectacular big game, and exotic birds.
Communist countries like the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of
China felt the impact of the environmental movement differently. Because
the major tenet of Marxism is materialism, protecting against pollution
is contrary to its ideology. The goal was production of steel, concrete,
and heavy machinery. Nevertheless, by the 1970s some knowledge of the
environmental movement in the West filtered into the USSR and Eastern
Europe. People opposed to the government adopted these aspects as a
safe form of protest. Citizens spoke out in favor of protecting a pristine
lake from pollution, which seemed politically innocent. Others joined
the Socio-Ecological Union. In Czechoslovakia young people joined the
Brontosaurus Club to enjoy hiking and camping. China was the last coun-
try for the environmental movement to penetrate, but now it has a few
groups. In the Communist countries, people joined nature groups because
it was a safe outlet. Their true opposition was often to lack of civil rights or
to religious suppression.
A paradox in environmental policy is that the problems are often global,
but the solutions must come from within individual countries. Global
warming is an example. As more greenhouse gases are pumped into the
atmosphere, the entire world is heating up from the North Pole to the