>i am not entirely sure about that. it is difficult to tell if things
>have got worse in tamil nadu, given that the rivers were dry when they
>were not transporting sewage and industrial waste even back in 1980,
>but the increased pollution has made life quite difficult in the big
>cities like madras (tamil nadu) (now called "chennai" by tamil
>zealots and foreigners ;-), but always madras to anyone who was born
>and brought up there) and bombay (maharashtra). this does not counter
>your point - this degradation might be short term or might only be
>the flip side of much larger gains for the "lower classes", etc.
>
> --ravi
I suspect increased urban pollution is going to be a long-term
problem in India--"long-term" meaning fifty years or more before
local governments find the political will to begin dealing with it.
If U.S. or British history is any guide, there will be a substantial
period of time during which both business and worker representatives
regard sewage and industrial waste as things that they cannot yet
afford to curb, or that can be curbed only with worse consequences
for their constituents.
The hope is that better modes of communication and organization and
better technologies will allow developing countries today to take a
'greener' development path than northwest Europe or north America
did. But I cannot see any way to realize this hope...
Brad DeLong
