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Environment in Russia

Environment in Russia. Environment in Central Asia. USSR was worse than West. 2.5 X air pollution of U.S. (per GNP) 20% water unsafe 1/3 of arable land affected by acid rain Etc., etc. Why USSR was worse. Heavy industry Expand agriculture “Inexhaustible” resources

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Environment in Russia

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  1. Environment in Russia

  2. Environment in Central Asia

  3. USSR was worse than West • 2.5 X air pollution of U.S. (per GNP) • 20% water unsafe • 1/3 of arable land affected by acid rain • Etc., etc.

  4. Why USSR was worse • Heavy industry • Expand agriculture • “Inexhaustible” resources • Legitimacy, self-sufficiency through technology • Sacrifice for defense

  5. Why USSR was worse • Leadership technicians; questioning prevented • Little free opposition • Secrecy; lack of enforcement • Central planning insensitive • Only capitalism harms nature

  6. WATER

  7. Aral Sea • Once the 4th largest inland body of water in the world. A series of dams was built to irrigate cotton. • Aral Sea reduced to about 25% of its 1960 volume, 4x salinity wiped out the fishery. • Pollutants became airborne as dust, causing significant local health problems.

  8. Interbasin water transfers (river diversions) Aral Sea Kara Kum Canal Amu Darya Size of Aral Sea Environmental damage estimated at $1.25 -$2.5 billion a year.

  9. Caspian Sea Western, Russian oil and gas Companies in Caspian Basin

  10. Caspian Sea Caspian Seal in Kazakstan Caspian sturgeon and its caviar Oil spill off Baku, Azerbaijan

  11. Dnieper R. Don R. BLACK SEA Ukraine Sea ofAzov Russia Dniester R. Moldova Crimea Georgia Danube R. Romania Bulg. Bosporus Turkey

  12. Sea of Azov Eutrophication (Algae growth) Metals plant on Dnieper River

  13. Lake Baikal Environmental objections to paper mills as early as 1960s

  14. Cyanide disasterAustralian-owned goldmine in Romania, 2000 80% of fish in Tisza River / wetlands died, spill to Danube

  15. Gabcikovo Dams,Slovakia Conflict, protests between Slovakia and Hungary over diversion of Danube River

  16. AIR & LAND Kola Peninsula, NW Russia

  17. BlackTriangle GDR POLAND Devastation from acid rain, SO2, toxics CZECHOSLOVAKIA

  18. Donbass & Kuzbass Donbass coal fields, E. Ukraine Kuzbass coal fields, W. Siberia

  19. Kalmykia European Buddhist Mongols Desertification Chemicals/ Salinization Oil development

  20. Sakha(Yakutia) • Siberian indigenous • Coal, metals mining • Logging

  21. Clear-cutting in Siberia Japanese and South Korean companies take advantage of “fire sale” International campaign to protect Amur Tiger along Chinese border

  22. Noril’sk nickel smelter

  23. Arctic Haze and Acid Rain

  24. WAR Kola Peninsula Acid rain, Mining, Nuclear subs scuttled

  25. Toxic military bases Abandoned Soviet military bases in Eastern Europe have toxic wastes (like U.S. bases elsewhere.)

  26. Sverdlovsk anthrax, 1979 Bioweapons disaster, 79 cases (66 dead) in Yeltsin’s district

  27. Bombing civilian chemical plants Toxic cloud after NATO bombing of Pancevo plant in Yugoslavia, 1999

  28. Uranium mining Roma (Gypsy) kids playing on radioactive mill tailings from Soviet uranium mine in Pécs, Hungary

  29. Soviet nuclear testsin Kazakstan Genetic defects near Semey (Semipalatinsk) Kazaks protest

  30. Kyshtym waste disaster, 1957 • Explosion at Soviet weapons factory forces evacuation of over 10,000 people in Ural Mts. • Area size of Rhode Island still uninhabited; thousands of cancers reported Orphans

  31. Novaya Zemlya

  32. NUCLEARPOWER Chernobyl disaster, April 1986

  33. 400 million people exposed in 20 countries

  34. “It Can’t Happen Here” • U.S. reaction to Chernobyl, 1986 • Blamed on Communism, graphite reactor • Also Soviet reaction to Three-Mile Island, 1979 • Blamed on Capitalism, pressurized-water reactor • No technology 100% safe • Three-Mile Island bubble almost burst

  35. 8,000 deaths in 14 years 3.5 million sick, one/third of them children

  36. My grandmother, by Luda

  37. Death of my life, by Marina

  38. Chernobyl is war, by Irena

  39. Beauty and the beast, by Helena

  40. Nothing escapes radiation, by Irena

  41. Chernobyl, our hell, by Eugenia

  42. Self-portrait, by Natasha

  43. Chernobyl’s political fallout • Secrecy stimulated glasnost, environmental opposition • Stimulated nationalism in Ukraine, Belarus, other republics that lost clean-up workers. • Questioning of the heart of technocratic power • USSR collapsed within 5 years.

  44. Positives since end of USSR • Democratization: NGOs, data • Decentralization: local sensitivity • Deindustrialization of old areas • Expanded national parks • Protection laws stronger by 1993

  45. Negatives since end of USSR • Financial difficulties; jobs stressed • Reduced monitoring, enforcement • Increased affluence, cars, waste • Profit motive; foreign firms • Putin dismantled agency, 2002

  46. Other positives in Eastern Europe • Ecological dissidents in transition • Increased spending • Pollution control technology • Loss of markets • Entry into E.U. standards

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