I do think that the Soviets did a lot to wreck their environment along with their economy. Note how I really didn’t mention the soviets in the above listing – because they really didn’t open up their economy in the first place, just sold off oil and spent the $ on their trophy capital Moscow.

The Chinese and the Indians and the Brazilians definitely use far more resources today than they would have under their respective former modes of governing. They also have massively upgraded the standards of living for their people, and they have growing populations, unlike Russia, which is shrinking rapidly.

In the case of the Chinese, Indians and Brazilians I think definitely they use more resources today and do more “damage” to the environment as defined by carbon emissions and the like than they did under socialism.

As for the Soviets, it is more of a toss-up. Also note that much of the Soviet industrial output was weaponry, so for all the pollution, they have little to show for it, anyways.

However, there was considerable pollution back in the day (early 70’s and before) that many of you who are over 40 will remember. I agree that this problem got blown totally out of proportion by the leftists, but it was a real problem that we successfully tackled. The Soviet Union, on the other hand, destroyed much of their land so badly that some of it will remain poisoned for generation (places in Central Asia and parts of Siberia). Much of this degradation came to light only after the Soviet Union had collapsed in ‘92. According to Ralph Peter’s latest book, there are places in Central Asia where people have birth defects that would match anything that a Hollywood screen writer could come up with.

China has had some of this, but is making efforts to clean itself up. I’ve been to Shanghai and Beijing. The pollution is bad, but not as bad as the western press would have you believe. I’ve experienced worse in Southern Taiwan and Bangkok. The air pollution in Shanghai and Beijing today is comparable to that of SoCal in the mid 80’s (it is MUCH better now).

Much of the bruhaha over global warming is due to the lack of real environmental issues in the developed world today.

I stand by my comments about population issues in the late 60’s. It is true that it was known even then that increased standard of living and consumer choices led to reduced birth rates. However, this was believed to be a “western-only” thing as the rest of the world was not developed at the time. Remember that even Spain and Italy still had high birth rates at the time and was viewed as culturally “immutable”. We have since learned otherwise.

Hermann Kahn (the 300 lbs. scientist who was the basis for the character of Dr. Strangelov) wrote a book in 1970 called “The Year 2000″ where he predicted that global birthrates would drop as a result of industrialization. His book was considered controversial at the time because it was believed that such a population trend was a western-only trait. He also predicted that sub-cultures, like the hippies, would proliferate over time.

Which generates more pollution: a few hundred million cooking fires, or power plants generating enough electricity for a few hundred million electric stoves? Without doing the analysis, I bet the answer is the cooking fires.

Also consider untreated sewage,etc

Soon other industries left town. Pittsburgh used to be the #3 city in the US in terms of corporate headquarters. Today it is not in the top 300. Even the Mellons and Heinzs sold out and left town.

But now Pittsburgh has clean air. And because so many people have left, very high property taxes. And laws that keeep new imndustries out. Today our graduates all leave town to find new jobs. Except the dumb ones.

Obama says he is going to pass laws to eliminate the cycle of boom and bust. Because no one can gaurantee permanent boom this means we will have permanet bust.