The Environment and International History by Scott Kaufman

Author:Scott Kaufman [Kaufman, Scott]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781474219327
Google: PsGUwwEACAAJ
Goodreads: 36954402
Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
Published: 2018-12-13T00:00:00+00:00

PHOTO 6 Desertification caused by overgrazing. Credit: Dreamstime.

Was this calamity human-bred or the result of meteorological conditions over which humans had no control? That question split the delegates at a 1977 conference on desertification held in Nairobi. Sponsored by UNEP and the UN Development Programme—a body founded in 1965 to assist LDCs—some of the representatives of the ninety-four nations attending considered desertification primarily an African problem that did not deserve the same attention as more global environmental matters like whaling or acid rain. Furthermore, the delegates split along North-South lines over what, if anything, to do about it. For African states, it was important to tackle desertification as quickly as possible. The way to do so was to end poverty, which required financial assistance from countries in the North. More advanced nations were unwilling to offer such aid, for even if meteorological conditions (such as cycles in the climate) were partly to blame, the degradation of the land appeared largely human-induced: overpopulation, poor government planning, and poor land use. Why offer monetary assistance, asked DCs, if it could do nothing to alter nature itself or might be wasted by the governments that received it? Consequently, the conference attendees agreed to a “plan of action” to address the problem but omitted requirements for funding.14

The Anglo-American shift

By the end of the 1970s, countries in the North that had devoted at least some attention to the environment began to push it even more to the wayside. This was particularly the case for the United States and Great Britain. Jimmy Carter, who had assumed the US presidency in 1977, had repeatedly referenced in his speeches his belief in conservation of the environment,15 but that commitment was overwhelmed by other priorities. At home, he confronted a growing conservative backlash, an energy shortage, and a weak economy. Abroad, he faced a number of crises, among them the fourteen-month-long Iran hostage crisis that began in November 1979—in which Iran held dozens of Americans against their will—and, a month later, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. In 1980, an angry American electorate turned away from Carter and to his Republican rival, Ronald Reagan.

At the time of Reagan’s election, detente was on life support. Following the invasion of Afghanistan, Carter had announced an arms buildup, imposed an embargo on grain shipments to the Soviet Union, and threatened to use force if the Soviets tried to take over the Persian Gulf. Reagan showed little preparedness to reverse this course of events. He initiated the largest peacetime expansion of the US military in its history up to that point, went ahead with a plan developed in 1979 to put nuclear missiles in Western Europe, dubbed the Soviet Union the “evil empire,” promised to support “freedom fighters” combating communism, and called for the construction of an anti-ballistic missile system named the Strategic Defense Initiative. Fears grew in both the United States and Western Europe that the superpowers were heading toward an atomic exchange. The reintensifiction of the Cold War served to push environmental matters down the list of priorities.

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