From polluted rivers to smog-filled air, Asia’s environmental challenges have grown along with its economies. Readers were shocked at the scale of the crisis, but optimistic that the region will clean up its act
“Visions of Green” [Oct. 9] stated, “improved environmental technology can help developing Asia become as efficient in cleaning up pollution as it is in creating it, but only if the commitment is made before we pass the point of no return.” Very true. Asia is subject, however, to not only regional environmental and climatic changes but also global ones. The global changes affect Asia and vice versa. The U.S., whose citizens consume 10 times more energy per capita than the Chinese, must also reduce its environmental impact. The U.S. government has been reluctant to work within international frameworks, such as the Kyoto agreement, which are needed to address the global environmental problem. The U.S. must join such international environmental efforts before it is too late.
Katz Tomono
Tokyo
This is déjà vu, I said to myself when I saw the pictures of a flood of trash floating on a Jakarta river and bike commuters wearing masks to protect themselves from toxic diesel fumes in Kanpur, India. Those are the same scenes we saw in Kitakyushu and other cities in the 1960s and ’70s, when Japan was notorious as the archipelago of kogai, or environmental disruption. I was one of the victims of the choking smog at that time. Asians are starting to put more pressure on their governments to tackle staggering environmental problems, but time is running out. Having seen Japan recover from its environmental mess, I am confident the country can help clean up the rest of Asia. I urge our Asian friends to demand without hesitation a helping hand from Japan.
Tadashi Kawabe
Fukuoka, Japan
After reading Bryan Walsh’s “Visions of Green,” I felt guilty so suddenly of how severely Asians, including myself, have destroyed the environment. Looking past all the different ways companies all over Asia have caused different kinds of pollution, I think all individuals living in Asia have also given their fair share of damage to the environment. I think that saving the environment is not only limited to making drastic clean-up methods or reducing the waste materials caused by excessive production. Saving the environment should originate from a change in perspective of how all of us view ourselves in relation to the environment. Unless we still believe that we are in control of the environment at the expense of its weakness and vulnerability to cope with our unstoppable cravings, there won’t be any good done to save the environment. We should see the environment as it is and not as merely an instrument to satisfy our endless needs.
Matilde Claire T. Mancol
Quezon City, the Philippines
I echo Bryan Walsh’s article about the housewives’ joint effort in pushing the Kitakyushu government and business sectors to work on pollution. I live on the southern tip of Hong Kong island overseeing the South China Sea. But in recent years, my house’s windows oversee smog rather than the nearby outlying islands of Hong Kong. In September, my 4-year-old son suffered from respiratory infection twice and was prevented from going to school. The poor air condition in Hong Kong has reached an alarming level.
Fredrick Yip Chi Wing
Hong Kong
The G.O.P. and the Green Stuff
“The G.O.P.’s Secret Weapon” [Oct. 9] described the Republicans’ advantages over the Democrats in the upcoming congressional races: more money and a formidable ground game to turn out voters. But even more reassuring for G.O.P. leaders is knowing they, as members of the party in power, have gerrymandered electoral districts; booby-trapped election processes in such states as Ohio and Florida; and widely mandated unreliable, unsecure and unverifiable voting equipment. Time should invite international judges and journalists to monitor the elections and report their findings in the magazine.
Robert Travis
San Antonio, Texas, U.S.
I couldn’t help noticing that each of the $100 bills illustrating “The G.O.P.’s Secret Weapon” has the same serial number. What are you trying to tell us? That the Republican Party platform in November is counterfeit?
Bob Fashingbauer
Chicago
Stumbling Toward Democracy
Andrew Marshall’s viewpoint on Thailand’s military coup, “Dictators’ Delight” [Oct. 9], would have been more appropriately titled “A Dictator’s Demise.” Before the coup the stress level of all educated and well-informed Thais was at an all-time high. It seemed inevitable that Thai blood would flow on Bangkok’s streets. The army’s intervention against Thaksin Shinawatra’s autocratic rule came as a great relief to Thais, who had been living on edge for at least the past year. Marshall seems to believe in democracy for democracy’s sake. Under Thaksin’s five-year rule, we lived with massive corruption and oppression. I know we have to wait and see if the people in power keep their promise of finishing the revision of the constitution and calling a new election within a year. At least they kept their promise of choosing a Prime Minister—Surayud Chulanont—who is universally acceptable to the people, and the tanks and soldiers disappeared from the streets immediately thereafter. Democracy may yet have the last laugh in Thailand. And that is definitely what every Thai is looking forward to.
Supoj Homprasert
Wat Chalor, Thailand
Bangkok’s élite may have forced their way into power peacefully, but they have discarded democracy and the rights of the majority, which voted in the Thaksin government. While the minority rejoices, the majority will remain voiceless, helpless and puzzled at the way the power game is being played and how national interest is defined.
Loh Seng Hock
Johor Bahru, Malaysia
As Marshall noted, the day democracy in Southeast Asia may have the last laugh indeed “remains a long way off.” But the Thai coup, while not an event worth celebrating, should not have been a shock and is not a blow to democracy in the region. Rather, it simply shows how little progress democracy has made in putting down roots since the last coup. Efforts to establish democracy in Thailand have failed because they have been imposed from the top. Nothing has been done to educate the people at the grass roots, thus leaving a very shaky foundation. The development of democracy is a long and grueling process, and unless the public is educated, checks and balances can be undermined by the next leader who has the means to garner the most votes.
Paul Chaiyodsilp
Pak Kret, Thailand
France’s Lady of the Left
Ségolène Royal has succeeded by presenting herself as the image of honorable French womanhood and employing the politics of charm [Oct. 9]. She is adept at handling policy issues pragmatically rather than ideologically. Since her partner, Socialist Party secretary François Hollande, has also been touted as a potential presidential candidate, there is an across-the-water parallel. Like Hillary and Bill Clinton in the U.S., this may be another welcome case of getting two for the price of one.
Martin L. Grey
High Wycombe, England
TIME’s story gave the impression that Royal is shaking up the French political scene. As you must know, this country has survived much more dangerous shaking, political or otherwise. And although Royal is quite right in declaring that one should not have to be “sad, ugly and boring to go into politics,” what about being modest?
Jean-Jacques Luccioni
St.-Laurent-du-Var, France
Leonardo Loved Freaks
Art researchers are trying harder than ever to unravel the enigma of the Mona Lisa‘s beauty [Oct. 9]. But Leonardo da Vinci was just as interested in capturing the grotesque, as TIME reported in its Feb. 3, 2003, issue:
“The pleasure that he took in human ugliness was almost as intense as the delight afforded him by the spectacle of beauty. Granted, cosmetic considerations were less to the fore in 16th century Europe than they would be four centuries later. Granted, social attitudes toward the repellent aspects of old age were different. And yet it is difficult to look at his numerous drawings of horribly, freakishly ugly old people … LEONARDO’S PECULIAR AND SADISTIC IMAGINATION IS AT A BIG REMOVE FROM OURS. He is saying, Idealize as much as you want, but shun denial. The necessary other side of the ideal beauty of Leonardo’s Mona Lisa or Cecilia Gallerani was the ugliness of his grotesqueries—an ugliness that disintegrates all possibility of desire and has something mockingly demonic, not just medical, about it. To see his grotesques as the mere play of a mind tinged with sadism is to misunderstand them. They are an essential part of the impulse that turned Leonardo toward an attachment to beauty as a kind of saving principle.” Read more at timearchive.com.
Setting the Record Straight
• Lost in Translation
An Oct. 2 story on Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez incorrectly stated that he thought linguist and social critic Noam Chomsky was dead, an allusion to mistranslated remarks Chávez made at a news conference. What Chávez said was, “I am an avid reader of Noam Chomsky, as I am of an American professor who died some time ago.” Later Chávez identified the professor as Harvard economist John Kenneth Galbraith, who died in April.
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