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Politics : Mainstream Politics and Economics -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: koan who wrote (47720)	7/6/2013 1:56:39 PM
From: TimF	Respond to of 85487

Society is a bunch of individuals. Those individuals decided they wanted to do something about it because they where wealthy enough to not have to focus on just staying alive, so they could care more about other things, and use the surplus wealth to allow for things like environmental protection and cleanup. Societies don't normally make such decisions if they desperately need the polluting industry to support their most basic needs, and if the industry isn't competitive enough to survive having to pay the extra costs of environmental protection and cleanup. As society initialy develops some wealth, it may harm the environment more (a few scattered small tribes are usually limited in the harm they can do, although even then they can utilize slash and burn agricuture, and hunt species to extinction), so pre-industrial and early industrial development probably cause more environmental harm than benefit. But later development (which happens fastest and most effectively when economies are more free), helps to limit or reverse the damage. Society deciding to do something about it, isn't just a matter of passing a law, you have to have people care about the laws and the ideas behind them, which they will be far less likely to do if they are desperately poor. Also you need the resources to do something about it, and those resources have come from the operation of the market.