Environment and Climate Change as Geopolitical Issues in the Asias: What Can Be Learned from the European Experience?

The 1960s and the 1970s were a period of scientific and technical advances, and rapid growth of production. This growth was accompanied by an increasing consumption of natural resources and an unprecedented increase in pollution with gaseous, liquid and solid industrial wastes and consumption residues exerting negative effects on the environment and human health. The hazardous smog of 1952 and 1956 in London, which had taken the lives of 5,000 people were fresh in memory, and frequent smog in Los Angeles, Chicago, Tokyo and many other large cities brought widespread anxiety. The Minamata disease, a neurological syndrome caused by severe mercury poisoning, was first discovered in 1956. Then in 1962, a milestone book, Silent Spring by Rachel Carson, documented detrimental effects of pesticides on the environment and accused the chemical industry of spreading disinformation, and public officials of accepting industry claims uncritically. At the same time, scientific reports on long-range transboundary dispersion of radioactivity submitted to the General Assembly of the UN laid the scientific grounds on which the Test Ban Treaty on the prohibition of nuclear testing in the atmosphere was negotiated and signed in 1963. In parallel