Environmentalism

Industrialization had an organic connection with imperial expansion, as white colonists took possession of large parts of the globe, re-orienting local economies towards the demands of the metropolis. British ships were built of Burma teak, their sailors wearing clothes of cotton grown in India, drinking Kenyan coffee sweetened with sugar planted i

economic growth. Open-cast mining and the ever-growing appetite of industry decimated forests and wild-lands. New and dangerous chemicals were excreted into rivers and the atmosphere.

The first wave of environmentalism proceeded step-by-step with the Industrial Revolution, itself the most far-reaching process of social change in human history. The industrialization of the world dramatically altered the natural world through new methods of resource extraction, production, and transportation. The scale and intensity at which natur

off their lands through destructive and carelessly conceived projects. The short-term orientation of electoral politics, the strong influence exercised on public policy by resource-extractive industries, and the apathy of the media all contribute to a lack of attention to environmental issues.

India today is an environmental basket-case, marked by polluted skies, dead rivers, falling water-tables, ever-increasing amounts of untreated wastes, disappearing forests. Meanwhile, tribal and peasant communities continue to be pushed

and the Jamuna are effectively dead. India and China have also witnessed, in recent years, the large-scale depletion of groundwater aquifers, the loss of biodiversity, the destruction of forests, and the decimation of fish-stocks.

The third challenge is that posed to the environments of these countries themselves. Chinese cities have the highest rates of air pollution in the world. Rivers such as the Ganga

giants are rapidly making up for lost time.

Second, at the regional or continental level, the rise of India and China will have environmental (and social) impacts beyond their national borders. The West has for some time worked to relocate its dirty industries to the South, passing on the costs to the poor and the powerless. In the same manner, the externalities of Indian and Chinese consume