Activism Change

Pollution tarnishes Lake Baikal, Russia's jewel

Question:

Does anyone find this surprising ? What I find surprising is your continued ignorance and deliberate obfuscation in the face of facts. The Soviet Union, that marvel of progressive politics, fucked up the environment. The Soviet Union is not known now, nor has it ever been known for progressive politics.

You want to try that on any leftist politician before, say, 1985 ? You want me to go get the quotes ? You want to talk about CND ? European Communist Parties ? The American Communist Party ?  The Soviet Union has been known for totalitarianism, however.  Do you understand the difference/ Yup, oddly I do. So let’s protect the environment by having more progressive politics…… I see you still don’t "get" it.

I have to admit that I haven’t ‘ got ‘ a point you’ve tried to make yet. The problems facing Russia are the same as ours.  Additionally, pollution and environmental destruction don’t recognize and respect political borders.  The fact that you are more interested in causing problems rather than solving them demonstrates that you share more in common with the Soviet dictators of the past than you do with those who are interesteed in progress.

I want progress…..I just disagree with you about what progress constitutes. Dictators tend to say that anyone who disagrees with them gets shot. All I’ve said about you is that you should get an education. No, that does not make me a dictator…unkind perhaps, but not a dictator. Until corporations and industrial polluters stop polluting, society will require as many regulations as possible.  I suggest that these regulations be enforced internationally, so that multinationals can’t go from country to country, polluting environments that don’t have adequate protection.

We already haev international treaties on these things. You’ll find that multinationals tend to have better pollution controls than domestic companies in poor countries.  Once the entire planet is protected, industrial polluters will either have to change their ways or stop production.

So when my compnay stops production where are you going to get your fuel cells from ? And that’s how it’s going to be, so get used to it.

Now that is the statement of a dictator. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – - Chive Science progresses, one funeral at a time.

Response:

- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Sunday, September 2, 2001 Pollution tarnishes Russia’s jewel, Lake Baikal Citizens begin campaign to change mind-set that thinks short-term only Robert G. Kaiser Washington Post Baikalsk, Russia — Of all Siberia’s treasures, the greatest must be Lake Baikal, a wonder of nature. Baikal takes the breath away. Even statistics about Baikal take the breath away. But Baikal is in grave danger, threatened by human stupidity and inertia. This is no ordinary lake but, rather, a geologically unique crevice or rift in the Earth’s crust formed at least 20 million years ago, probably by colliding giant land masses. The deepest spot yet measured in the lake is 5, 715 feet below its surface, and there may be deeper ones. It’s 380 miles long and as much as 48 miles across. Baikal holds more water than all five American Great Lakes; it holds one-fifth of Earth’s supply of fresh water. And the lake is still growing: The crevice widens slightly every year, and the water level rises about a millimeter. Much of it is surrounded by cliffs that become steep mountains, a dramatic sight. More than 300 streams and rivers feed the lake, but only one leaves it, the mighty Angara River. Baikal is home to 1,500 species, two-thirds of them unique, most lovably the Baikal seal or nerpa (which hunters now poach because it brings a handsome price from Chinese fur traders). The lake is blessed with unique forms of epischura, tiny crustaceans that purify the lake’s water remarkably. A bright object can be seen clearly through 600 feet of water. But Baikal’s cleanliness has been compromised by four decades of pollution from enterprises built near the lake or on its banks — most significantly the Baikalsk Cellulose Combinat, on the lake’s southern end, and a similar plant nearby on a principal tributary, the Selenge River. This factory uses a chlorine treatment to turn wood pulp into cellulose, the raw material used to make paper, cardboard and other products. Its construction was authorized in 1966, over the objections of some of the Soviet Union’s leading scientists. Pyotr Kapitsa, who later won the Nobel Prize, said then that introducing chemical waste from cellulose production into this unique ecosystem "can utterly destroy the favorable balance of nature and totally ruin the lake’s purity." CLARITY IS DECEPTIVE Kapitsa was right, and the lake has never been the same. It remains clear as glass, but appearances can be deceiving. Scientists have traced two giant plumes of invisible chemical pollution that start at the cellulose plant here, and at the point where the Selenge enters the lake. These plumes overwhelm the lake’s natural defenses, said Gary Cook of Baikal Watch, an environmental group based in San Francisco. In the southern part of the lake where these plumes have formed, the omul, Baikal’s most prolific fish, has declined substantially in number. Now the government is trying to save the omul by restricting fishing, but ordinary citizens around the lake angrily defy the rules. Georgi Nurullin, a schoolteacher who lives on the lake’s eastern shore, said the natives "have to fish — it’s their life, they have to have it." These people and their ancestors have been living on omul for millennia. Interviews in Buryatiya, on the east side of the lake, and Irkutsk on the west, suggest the pollution of Baikal raises enormous questions no one seems equipped to answer. In today’s Russia, governments don’t have money to fund basic services, let alone innovative and disruptive schemes of the kind needed to assure Baikal’s future. And businesses see the world in the shortest of short terms: "No one thinks about tomorrow, or the day after," said one of Irkutsk’s most successful entrepreneurs, Stanislav Ogorodnikov, partner in an independent television station. Rules and laws theoretically protect Baikal, and a few significant steps have been taken. The Selenge River cellulose plant has created a "closed loop" system meant to prevent discharges of pollutants. Environmental activists here are dubious, since the harmful chemicals must be disposed of somehow, even in a closed-loop system. New studies of the Selenge’s cleanliness may give a clearer idea of the new system’s effectiveness. ‘LAWS DON’T WORK’ In 1998, the Duma in Moscow passed a law banning the burning of coal in power plants around the lake, to limit acid rain and air pollution. But "the laws don’t work," said geologist Vladimir Belgologov, who created the Buryat Regional Association for Baikal, a citizens environmental group in the Buryat Republic, whose territory includes most of Baikal’s shoreline. He’s right. In Ulan Ude, capital of the Russian republic, the local electric power plant plans to modernize and replace its coal-burning boilers — with new coal-burning boilers. The "Law on Baikal" is more a declaration of high-minded intent than a serious legal impediment to pollution. Belgologov’s sardonic assessment: "Relax, the worst is yet to come." But he isn’t giving up. His organization, active and determined, is emblematic of something new in Russia, where, until quite recently, citizens demonstrated their enthusiasm for causes only when instructed to do so, and in the manner prescribed. Now citizens groups have blossomed nationwide, the early shoots of what supporters hope can blossom into a real civil society. Belgologov said 300 such organizations are registered in the Buryat Republic. After 15 years in the trenches and, by his own account, very few successes, Belgologov is an experienced lobbyist who is invited to governmental meetings in Buryatiya. Nataha Travnikova, 20, enjoys no such status, but she, too, is a determined environmental activist. One recent Saturday, she was leading volunteers in picking up trash and scrap metal along Baikal’s shoreline. They were part of a monthlong campaign by Greenpeace Russia, which is hosting an international camp near here for volunteers who want to help Baikal. Travnikova is studying journalism at Irkutsk State University. Her brigade – - nine women and two men, all but one of college age — was working less than a mile from the giant Baikalsk Cellulose Combinat. Was it really worth the effort to pick up the cigarette packs and beer bottles, when Russians seem accustomed to dropping such items wherever they may be? "We’re making a little progress," Travnikova replied. "People have heard that we’re picking up the trash, and now a lot of them leave their trash in bags." But they still leave it. For the most part, she said, changing Russian habits "is hopeless." Roman Pukalov, the charismatic director of the Greenpeace campaign for Baikal for the last six years, agreed. He said such volunteer efforts along the shore were "useless — it will revert to the same condition it was in, in a week, or a month, or a year." RECYCLING But Pukalov hoped to recycle the 30 tons of trash his volunteers will pick up this summer, to demonstrate to local residents that "trash is money." And he planned to try to persuade local businesses to assume responsibility for part of the shoreline, something like American "adopt a highway" programs. The oldest public organization trying to protect the lake here is Baikal Wave. A key member is Jennie Sutton, an Englishwoman who moved to Irkutsk a quarter-century ago out of a love for Russia. The environmental movement here "is very small, very weak," she said. Its successes have been few, while economic realities and political inertia allow pollution of the lake to continue. Sutton has seen more and more construction on the banks of the lake, more human pollution going into it, and the hardening of local opinion that the region cannot do without the 3,000 jobs that the Cellulose Combinat provides. Hard times and the absence of public funds to protect the lake are chronic problems to which she sees no obvious solution.

Filed under: Activist Movement

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