Message-ID: <32D758BC.5B09@mind.net> Date: Sat, 11 Jan 1997 09:09:16 +0000 From: "B. Diamond" <mailto:bdiamond@MIND.NET> Subject: [Fwd: TECH, WEALTH, HEALTH] To: Multiple recipients of list DEVEL-L <mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU>
Thought this might be of interest to the listmembers, particularly because it addresses some of the issues we've recently been discussing.B. Diamond
>
> >Subject: Rich Get Richer, But the Environment Not Sicker?
>
> >This article comes from SCIENCE of web site:
> >http://www.apnet.com/inscight
>
> > An environmental truism may not be so true after all.
> > Experts have tended to assume that a country's
> > environmental impact--measured as pollution or
> > resource use--swells as it gets bigger, richer, and more
> > technologically advanced. Indeed, the idea is even
> > enshrined in an equation, Impact = Population x
> > Affluence x Technology (IPAT). But according to an
> > analysis by two sociologists in the current issue of the
> > Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,
> > two factors in this equation--affluence and
> > technology--may not always harm the environment after
> > all.
> > IPAT was set down in 1972 by two prominent
> > Stanford University scientists--biologist Paul Ehrlich,
> > author of The Population Bomb, and physicist John
> > Holdren--but nobody had checked to see whether it
> > reflects reality. So Thomas Dietz of George Mason
> > University in Virginia and Eugene Rosa of Washington
> > State University set out, as Dietz puts it, to "discipline the
> > debate with data." By putting in numbers for carbon
> > dioxide emission, population, and affluence [gross
> > domestic product (GDP) per capita] for more than 100
> > countries, they tested the fit of the IPAT equation.
> > The results were surprising. Population acted almost
> > as expected, although very big countries, like China and
> > India, were more polluted than IPAT predicted. But
> > increasing affluence didn't seem to trigger a linear rise in
> > pollution. "With advanced economies, there might be a
> > structural change," Rosa speculates. "More of the GDP
> > is in [nonpolluting] services than in [polluting] industry."
> > Technology, though, produced the weirdest results.
> > Dietz and Rosa couldn't identify any independent
> > measure of T that they considered reliable, so they
> > plugged values for the other three variables into the
> > equation and derived values for T. The results bore little
> > resemblance to actual levels of technological
> > development. For the United States, for example, the
> > IPAT equation implies a level of technology somewhere
> > between Papua New Guinea's and Senegal's. The
> > influence of technology on environmental impact is at
> > best indirect, concludes Dietz; other factors such as
> > economic organization and cultural attitudes probably
> > modify its effects.
> > Environmental scientists say they're not surprised that
> > IPAT has its limits. "It's a conceptual framework," not a
> > basis for rigorous predictions, says Donella Meadows of
> > Dartmouth College. Adds Stuart Gaffin of the
> > Environmental Defense Fund, who's serving on a
> > committee of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
> > Change, "It's an important formula, but I see its flaws."
> >