CHAPTER 9.  Global Issues II: Environmental Protection and Population
 

"...Spring now comes unheralded by the return of the birds, and the early mornings are strangely silent where once they were filled with the beauty of bird song."
Rachel Carson

Environmental Protection: Background and Introduction
Environmental protection is the international S&T issue par excellence.  No less than communications signals or salmon or research vessels does pollution pass across international boundaries -- via air or water.  Rachel Carson gave the great initial impetus to the international environmental movement with her landmark book Silent Spring in 1962.  It focused on the ill effects of pesticides on wildlife, on man and on the "balance of nature."  By 1972 the United Nations was ready to hold a Conference on the Human Environment in StockholmStockholm  that codified the environmental movement.  A result of the Stockholm conference was the establishment of the UN Environmental ProgramUN Environmental Program  with headquarters inefficiently located in Nairobi for political reasons, in order to share the wealth of UN organizations among countries besides the United States, Switzerland and Austria.  A second UN environmental conference took place in Rio de Janeiro in 1992.  Heavily politicized, the conference had little hope of getting as full cooperation from hard-line delegations as at Stockholm. Sessions followed up in Kyoto in 1997 and Buenos Aires in 1998.

GLOBAL ISSUES II

International Environmental Issues

The foreign affairs issues in environmental protection have included:
--acid rain, especially as an issue between the United  States and Canada,
--global warming and ozone-layer depletion,
--hazardous waste disposal, ocean dumping and spills, weather modification, environmental warfare,
--politicization of the environment at Stockholm, at Rio de Janeiro and at UNEP in Nairobi, and
--endangered species.

Domestic and International Policy
The decade from 1970-1980 produced in the United States strong national and state legislation to protect the environment.  New laws set up the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970 and set standards for clean air, clean water, noise abatement, pesticides, toxic substances and ocean dumping.  The National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) signed in 1970 required that the environmental impact of public works projects be addressed before being carried out.  A major act also provided for cleanup of past large-scale environmental pollution with a large-scale "superfund."

Of importance to foreign affairs was the leadership of the United States in these years in setting policy for protecting the environment.  Other nations and international organizations studied the U.S. domestic initiatives and in many cases patterned theirs on the American models.  Evangelistic U.S. delegations overseas explained what they were doing at home, urged international partners to do likewise and advocated multilateral and cooperative schemes for environmental protection.

The Reagan and Bush administrations greatly reduced the emphasis on environmental regulation but did not completely eliminate or reverse earlier legislation, which retained many advocates.

Acid Rain
Sulfur and nitrogen compounds in smoke from power plants utilizing coal and oil and from other industrial facilities are carried by the wind; then these byproducts may react with water vapor in the air and fall in rain having an acidity harmful to plants, fish and buildings.  Ordinary rain is very slightly acidic; "acid rain" is still a dilute acid but nevertheless perhaps ten times or more stronger than natural rain.

Substantially documented damage by acid rain includes thousands of acidified lakes in Sweden and Norway, many now devoid of fish.  Over half of Germany's forests are adversely affected; hundreds of Canadian lakes are very acid; thousands of lakes in the United States on the eastern seaboard are incapable of supporting fish.  The OECD estimated member countries suffered $20 billion a year in structural damage caused by acid rain.

Regardless of one's views as to the relative benefits of industrial development vs forest and wildlife preservation, it is undeniable that such issues as acid rain are potent in foreign affairs.  Many in Scandinavia held the United Kingdom responsible for the pollution of its lakes even as British forests seemed to suffer as well.

A 1980 memorandum of understanding between the United States and Canada:acid rain called for emissions reductions on both sides.  Canada reduced its emissions but deemed the United States slow to meet its commitments.  No foreign affairs issue has been more contentious between the United States and Canada in the last three decades than acid rain, which Canada saw as a condition inflicted on it by heedless industries and power plants unchecked by the U.S. government.

Global Warming and Ozone-Layer Depletion
Global warming is the gradual increase of the average temperature of the earth due to increased carbon dioxide5:carbon dioxide  in the atmosphere.  Consequences could include rising sea levels, droughts and floods.  The mechanism responsible is the greenhouse effectGreenhouse effect .  In a glass greenhouse sunlight enters and warms the interior.  The glass is transparent to the sunlight but not to the heat generated, which is trapped, raising the temperature inside the greenhouse.  This is the same phenomenon that cools the earth on a clear night, when the heat of the day escapes to the sky, but, when the sky is overcast, lets the earth remain warmer when the heat cannot escape through the cloud cover.  Global warming is produced when atmospheric carbon dioxide inhibits escape of heat from the earth in the same way as the glass in the greenhouse or the clouds in the sky.

Global warming is not to be confused with increased ultraviolet radiation through the so-called ozone hole in the earth's atmosphere.  Chlorofluorocarbon gasesChlorofluorocarbon gases  (CFCs) widely used in refrigerators and air conditioners were shown to deplete natural ozone (a molecule of three oxygen atoms; molecules of normal atmospheric oxygen have just two.) in the atmosphere, a gas particularly absorbent of ultraviolet light.  Without this absorption the world's population would have been more at risk for skin cancer, and the effects on plants was unknown.  There was prompt international action to freeze CFC production in 1985 and to phase it out completely by 1992 under the terms of the Montreal Protocol.  Three chemists shared the 1995 Nobel prize in chemistry for establishing the ozone-CFC link.

The road to carbon dioxide reduction has been more difficult.1  Benign alternatives to CFCs existed, and the CFC industry was much smaller than that of fossil fuels.

The UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) at Rio de Janeiro in 1992 included global warming as a primary issue for action.  Concerted scientific preparation since 1988 by the UN Governmental Panel on Climate ChangePanel on Climate Change  had led to a consensus of over two thousand scientists worldwide substantiating the effect and assessing the consequences.  The Rio conference mandated a series of negotiations on a framework convention providing measures to reduce primarily carbon dioxide released into the air from burning coal and oil, gas and wood.  Delegates were far from agreement.  Coal and oil users and producers among the developed (industrialized) countries, including the United States, opposed strict measures.  Germany and Britain were at first more willing to adopt regulation.  Most developing countries resisted considering restrictions they hold to be essential to their economic growth, restrictions moreover that developed countries did not have at the early stage of their growth.  Two of the largest sources of atmospheric carbon dioxide were China and India.  They refused even to participate in negotiations.  Critics of the framework accord in the United States insisted it would do no good for the United States to hamper its industry by cutting back emissions unless developing countries did too.  Nevertheless, the Rio accord applied restrictions first to the developed countries, with extension to the developing countries to come later.

A follow-up conference in Kyoto in 1997 produced a protocol open for signature until March 1999.  It provides for thirty-eight industrial countries to reduce carbon dioxide emissionsCarbon dioxide emissions .  The United States signed in late 1998, the last of the industrialized countries to do so.  Fifty-seven countries all told had signed by the end of 1998.  At another follow-up meeting in Buenos Aires, Argentina became the first developing country to subscribe to the same targets and timetables for reduction of carbon dioxide as the developed countries.  Ratification of the accord by the U.S. Senate was for the time being unlikely, at least in part because of vigorous lobbying by the fossil fuels industry.

In the case of global warming the science establishing the effect is as incontrovertible as an experimental discipline can be.  The consequences may be debatable, but not the effect.  Lobbyists have fought observed fact with opinion.  Special-interest groups have once again turned the scientists' objectivity against them.  Seeing evidence, strong evidence or even overwhelming evidence for certain phenomena, scientists rarely maintain they see absolute proof.  Their science is still only correct until further notice.  Skeptics exploit this reservation as a weakness at best, or else a counterproof: if a scientist cannot say unequivocally that something is true, then it must be false.  At the very least, decisions must be delayed until "further study" is carried out.  Nevertheless, the evidence for global warming is overwhelming and convincing.

As often happens science has been subverted by politics or economics.  In the case of Chinese space launch services (Chapter 6) economic advantage for U.S. firms won out over security concerns.  Political considerations disillusioned participants in the United States-Spain cooperative program when Spain raised unlikely obstacles on the esoteric basis of geographic area for intellectual property rights and applicability of patent law in case of unequal coverage by the countries of the cooperating scientists.

It is interesting to compare these examples with the space stationSpace station  and the superconducting super colliderSuperconducting super collider .  Widely considered of dubious scientific value, the space station was kept alive at least in part for economic and political reasons.  The superconducting super collider, arguably of more scientific value, was killed.

Hazardous Waste Disposal.  Ocean Dumping.  Spills.
Every country has the problem of disposal of hazardous wastes: poisons, inflammables, acids, oils, paints, old batteries, even spent nuclear fuel.  Disposal is a science issue because
1) the wastes are largely from technological industries,
2) their handling and treatment are elucidated by science and
3) their effects have environmental impact.

Hazardous wastes are also an international issue.  Less-industrialized  countries have few wastes, but frequently they have attracted wastes of more developed countries or even sought to dispose of them for pay.  Environmentalists have seized on this issue in South America, charging that countries there are no more than rich countries' garbage cans.  (The U.S. exports toxic waste to overseas disposal sites, but only with notification to, and approval of the foreign government.)  Pending adherence to the Basel Convention on Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their DisposalConvention on Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and   would formalize and focus U.S. policy.  The heavy waste burden of industrialized countries plus the lower fees and available space for waste dumps in developing countries will continue to keep this issue alive.2

Weather Modification
Out of fashion by the 1990s, in the past weather modification has been an application of science with pronounced international implications.  From firing cannons at clouds to seeding them from airplanes with silver iodide, men have sought to modify the weather: to produce rain where there was none, to disperse fog, to suppress hail or to reduce hurricanes.  While the science involved has been sketchy and the experiments often carried out in uncontrolled and undocumented fashion so that results were uncertain, conclusions vague and a repetition of desired outcomes improbable, the international implications were immense.  If weather modification increases rainfall in country A, what falls there may decrease the rainfall for country B downwind, to its self-perceived detriment and almost certainly to its wrath.

Hurricanes do damage measured in the hundreds of millions of dollars.  Deflection of a storm from a path across country A to one across country B could shift the damage accordingly.

In the 1960s a U.S. research program called Project StormfuryStormfury  engaged the Commerce Department's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the navy in modifying hurricanes in the Atlantic.  A Pacific study area centered on Guam offered the opportunity to study more storms per year and thus increase the scientific value of the experimental project.  In 1966 President Johnson promised the Philippines U.S. aid in typhoon damage control.  (West of 180 degrees longitude hurricanes are termed typhoons.)  This transfer to the Pacific was terminated for lack of funds and because of objections by China, which during the negotiations assumed Taiwan's seat at the United Nations.  Reasonable science bowed to risk and politics.

Israeli efforts at rainmaking in the 1970s exacerbated relations with neighboring JordanJordan  (country B), where the government believed IsraelIsrael Israel  (country A) was stealing its rain.

In all cases the efficacy of weather modification was difficult to establish.  The stakes of improved weather, mainly in the form of higher rainfall, were so great that enthusiastic scientists rode waves of optimism in designing programs and soliciting funds.  Without further long, expensive, careful experiments, the interim verdict on weather modification must be termed only "intriguing."3  The government and Department of State must remain involved in discussions of plans and results.

Environmental Warfare
In the meantime, in the absence of provable or predictable results and large weather modification programs in most countries, the United States, the USSR and thirty-two other countries were able to foreswear use of weather modification as a weapon under terms of the 1976 Convention on the Prohibition of Military or Other Hostile Uses of Environmental Modification TechniquesConvention on the Prohibition of Military or Other Hostile Use .  First suggested at the U.S.-USSR summit in Moscow in 1974, this scientific convention is another example of the way science and technology could be used as one of the bases for agreement between two suspicious superpowers.4

Politicization of the UN Conferences
The declaration signed by countries attending the 1972 Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment pledged to prohibit cross-boundary pollution.  This principle was confirmed by many nations in the 1979 UN Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution.  The United States supported the Stockholm Conference and signed the final document.

When the Second UN Conference on Environment and DevelopmentUN Conference on Environment and Development  was held in 1992 in Rio de Janeiro, environment had become a more contentious international and domestic political issue worldwide.  The United States made massive preparations for the Rio conference with a large delegation.  At the last minute the delegation was augmented, and original key members had their authority shifted.  The most publicized areas of U.S. disagreement with the great majority of the attending countries were carbon dioxide emissionsCarbon dioxide emissions  reduction and preservation of biodiversity.  The United States declined to sign the convention prepared to the latter end.  Some European countries, originally swept along by the environmental enthusiasm of the EC (now European Union) secretariat, also had second thoughts about potential damping of their economies by acceptance of carbon dioxide emissions reduction targets.

Endangered Species: Whales, Elephants, Reptiles and Birds
One species of whale after another has been decimated due to over-kill.  The International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling set up in 1946 the International Whaling Commission, which called for a moratorium on commercial whaling from 1985-90.  United States interest in whale harvests is very low except to preserve traditional rights for certain Native Americans in Alaska.  Japan, Norway and the Soviet Union remain big whaling countries and bent the rules of the moratorium to allow whaling for "scientific research."  No foreign policy issue had ever brought more mail from the public to the United States Department of State than that "To save the whales."

The purpose of the U.S. Endangered Species Act of 1973 is to protect a wide range of animals and plants from becoming extinct.  These include the American bald eagle, the grizzly bear, the whooping crane, the condor, the spotted owl and the alligator.  Aside from heated domestic debates, the act has generated foreign affairs issues.  Imports of specimens, skins and feathers of the nearly 1200 endangered species are forbidden.

Population: Background and Introduction
It is hard to imagine a more sensitive issue in U.S. foreign affairs than "population" because of its domestic political importance.  In a nutshell, some countries in the world have an economy growth unable to support their population and its growth.  The result is diminishing shares of the national prosperity for the new citizens and economic decline for the whole country and all its citizens.  The two obvious main policy recommendations to alleviate the situation are: 1) decrease the population and 2) increase the economic output.  Policy implementation is the hard part.  Population issues are closely allied to those of the environment since population growth may strain natural resources by deforestation, overgrazing and pollution.

Burgeoning population and its potential problems and solutions are well known.  Even the generally timid and hamstrung United Nations has addressed the population problem and provided birth control aids to developing countries.  It has also sponsored conferences to address population issues.  The private International Planned Parenthood Federation has promoted limits to population.

In 1975 a major U.S. foreign affairs initiative under the direction of former ambassador to Indonesia and Australia, Marshall Green, promoted birth control and population management or whatever term might be acceptable with a view to getting under control what many considered a runaway world population that would have grave economic consequences.  While world population growth may not be as great as some had predicted, it is still clear that the world population is a continuous, low-level background issue in U.S. foreign affairs, especially in our relationships with African, Asian and some Latin American countries.  The Catholic Church has taken a stand generally opposed to population control by means widely advocated by many and proved efficacious.

Domestic antagonism toward some aspects of birth control and abortionBirth control and abortion  in the United States that often crosses over into fanaticism and even murder has colored U.S. foreign policy.  The United States has generally opposed the use of foreign aid appropriations to foster family planning, particularly in programs that involve China, which advocates use of abortion as one means of population control.  This policy has curtailed United States participation in UN multilateral programs.  The issue has at times clouded U.S.-Chinese bilateral relations.  The U.S. Congress has linked the abortionAbortion  issue to payment of United States dues to the United Nations.

United Nations Conferences
The United Nations has promoted conferences on population: in Bucharest in 1974,5 in Mexico CityMexico City:population conference 1984  in 1984 and in CairoCairo:population conference 1994  in 1994.  At Bucharest the U.S. delegation supported the UN secretariat's paper that said family planning information and assistance should be made available in all countries.  The United States even proposed that countries attending try to limit the number of children per family to two.  In Mexico City the United States advocated supporting an increasing population by economic growth.