Environmentalism

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

two Asian

In India, we are now in the middle of what might be called an ‘Age of Ecological Arrogance.’

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

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.

There are three environmental challenges posed by the economic rise of India and China. First, at the global level, is the threat of rapid and irreversible climate change due to the accumulation of greenhouse gases. As the early industrializers, the nations of the West were the original culprits; that said, the

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.

giants are rapidly making up for lost time.

By law every new project has to have an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA).