Word: environmental
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...environmental offenses at Baikal and elsewhere revived the deep relationship that the Soviets have with nature. "Please believe me," said Morgun, "the people have awakened." From Armenia to Zaporozhye, hundreds of thousands have taken to the streets to protest everything from air pollution to nuclear-power plants. In April 10,000 people demonstrated against the conditions in Nizhni Tagil. Protesters in Priozyorsk were successful in closing a major paper plant that had been dumping waste into Lake Ladoga, the source of drinking water for 6 million people. Many of the political demonstrations in the Baltic States are linked...
Gorbachev, whose background is in agriculture, has shown a special concern for the environment from the beginning of his reign. Early on, he toured the country and took care to detour from the carefully prepared showcase routes to inspect firsthand the polluted rivers and devastated forests. Funds for environmental protection, about $24 billion this year, are projected to reach $46.4 billion annually in the first half of the 1990s. At the same time, Gorbachev's regime has cracked down on polluters. Around Lake Baikal, about two dozen violations of ecological standards have been referred to prosecutors. In Nizhni Tagil...
But the Soviet leader may face a potential conflict between his desire for a cleaner environment and his hopes of rapidly raising the living standards and / consumption levels of his people. Without careful pollution control, boosting production will befoul the environment even more. And money that goes into antipollution equipment...
...long voyage of the Pelicano is a stark symbol of the environmental exploitation of poor countries by the rich. It also represents the single most irresponsible and reckless way to get rid of the growing mountains of refuse, much of it poisonous, that now bloat the world's landfills. Indiscriminate dumping of any kind -- in a New Jersey swamp, on a Haitian beach or in the Indian Ocean -- simply shifts potentially hazardous waste from one place to another. The practice only underscores the enormity of what has become an urgent global dilemma: how to reduce the gargantuan waste by-products...
...last analysis, the waste crisis is almost always most effectively attacked close to the source. There should be an international ban on the export of environmentally dangerous waste, especially to countries without the proven technology to dispose of it safely. In the past two years, some 3 million tons of hazardous waste have been transported from the U.S. and Western Europe on ships like the Pelicano to countries in Africa and Eastern Europe. Observed Saad M. Baba, third secretary in the Nigerian mission to the U.N.: "International dumping is the equivalent of declaring war on the people of a country...