Paul Goble
Staunton, October 22 – Lake Balkhash, the 12th largest lake in the world, is on the way to becoming “a second Aral Sea,” a Russian commentator says, but one with potentially even more serious political consequences because both the causes of the lake’s decline and the impact of its death involve not only Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan but China.
The demise of the Aral Sea and the impact of that development on the peoples of Central Asia have attracted intense international interest for many years, and this fall, the United Nations has organized a special session on how to save that inland sea that many believe is now far beyond the point of no return.
But the similar fate of Lake Balkhash, a 16,400 square kilometer body of water in southeastern Kazakhstan whose waters are fed by rivers rising in and often diverted by Kyrgyzstan and China has not, Vladimir Gavrilenko argues in an essay posted online this week (nsi-press.ru/2010/10/nauka/650).
That is because it, like Baikal, is today “under threat of disappearing.” Over the last several years, the surface area of Balkhash has decreased by some 2,000 square kilometers, “and the situation continues to get worse,” with one part of the lake already saline and the population around all of the lake already suffering from the exposure of chemicals.
According to Gavrilenko, the lake’s decline is entirely the result of human activity, and its approaching death will produce “an ecological catastrophe,” one that will affect not only Kazakhstan but Kyrgyzstan, China’s Xinjiang Province, other countries in Central Asia, and parts of the Russian Federation.
The lake’s decline was accelerated at the end of the last century, he notes, when the Chinese built a dam on the Ili River which had provided Balkhash with most of its water and then proceeded to take out ever greater percentages of its flow, something that has reduced the water level in the lake by two meters.
Given that Chinese demand on this source of water shows no sign of easing, ecologists say that “the Western part of the lake could disappear entirely” in the relatively near future, something that will create economic and health disasters for the three million people living in the region but also likely spark political tensions between Kazakhstan and China.
But China is not the only source of the lake’s problem, Gavrilenko says. People living around the lake, long used to having all the fresh water they wanted, “have not been accustomed to think about its economic use.” Instead, they have wasted enormous amounts of water because of outdated irrigation systems
Moreover, industrial facilities around the lake and along the six feeder rivers have been dumping toxic wastes into the flow, and many cities and towns have put untreated sewage into these rivers and the lake itself. The results should not have surprised anyone, Gavrilenko suggests, and the likely consequences in the future should disturb everyone.
Water shortages symbolized by the death of the Aral Sea have sparked numerous international conflicts, sometimes to the point of violence, among the Central Asian countries, especially between the water supplier countries of Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, on the one hand, and the downstream consumer countries, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.
The demise of Lake Balkhash almost certainly will increase tensions between Kazakhstan and China, tensions that are likely to be all the greater because the Balkhash crisis unlike the death of the Aral Sea has failed to attract the international attention that might help the people around the lake and cause the two sides to think more rationally about what is taking place.
But perhaps equally important, because the Lake Balkhash problem is so obviously the result of human action, expanded coverage of this environmental tragedy likely will further energize ecological movements in the Russian Federation east of the Urals, all the more so because people there are likely to link water issues to ethno-national ones.
Friday, October 22, 2010
Window on Eurasia: To Solve Russia's Demographic Problems, Moscow Should Fight High Mortality Rather than Seek to Boost Low Birthrate, Expert Says
Paul Goble
Staunton, October 22 – If Russia is to slow or even reverse its demographic decline, a Moscow commentator says, it cannot rely on pro-natalist policies alone but much address super-high mortality rates among working-age Russian males that are now ten times higher than for the counterparts in developed countries.
In an article in “Svobodnaya pressa” today, Andrey Polunin points out that despite a slight uptick in the number of births in 2009, an increase linked more to a temporary increase in the number of women in prime years for childbirth rather than to the regime’s pro-natalist policies, “Russia is slowly but surely dying out” (svpressa.ru/society/article/32430/).
For most of the last two decades, the Russian powers that be have tried to address the country’s demographic decline by trying to boost the birthrate, Polunin notes, but despite the “optimism” on this point expressed by President Dmitry Medvedev, such an approach “is practically useless.”
“Such measures [at best] produce a short-term effect,” Polunin points out. “Women give birth to a planned child at what they consider a profitable moment, but they do not become multi-child mothers.” Consequently, pro-natalist efforts, at least of the kind that Moscow has employed, are doing little or nothing to slow the country’s demographic decline.
But he argues that “it is possible to stop the withering away of Russia.” That is obvious if one remembers the observation of one expert that Russia has “European birthrates and African mortality rates” and then decides to focus on the latter. Were Russia to do that and reduce the mortality rates even to the levels of the 1980s, Russia would be growing, not declining.
Efforts to reduce mortality rates not only are possible but can be effective, Polunin says, and he points to the struggle against mortality that the European Union carried out from the 1970s to 2002. Over that period, mortality rates fell dramatically and life expectancy among both men and women increased “more than seven years.”
Russia has even a greater opportunity in this regard that the Europeans did. “Mortality among Russian men of working age exceeds the indicators of the developed countries by ten times and the figures in developing countries by five. Child mortality in Russia is twice as high as it is abroad, and the gap in life expectancy among men and women has reached 13 years.”
In his detailed essay, Polunin examines the situation in five areas where he suggests Russia could make real progress in reducing mortality rates. First of all, deaths on highways. Last year Russia lost more than 26,000 dead from road accidents. Eliminating all deaths on the roads is impossible, but reducing that figure is certainly possible, as the US has shown.
Second, deaths from alcohol. By several orders of magnitude, Russians die more often from alcohol than do residents of other countries. Officially, Russians of all ages consume an average of 18 liters of pure alcohol every year. Experts say the actual figure is closer to 30, and since most children don’t drink, the consumption of alcohol among adults is much higher.
Nikolay Gerasimenko, first deputy chairman of the Duma’s health committee, says that “mortality from alcohol has reached from 350,000 to 700,000 people every year,” and if one adds deaths in which alcohol combined with other problems, losses linked to alcohol are “higher still.”
Mikhail Gorbachev’s anti-alcohol campaign, as unpopular as it was, cut the death rate from alcohol by 200,000 a year for five years, according to Health Minister Tatyana Golikova. That means that one million people lived who otherwise might have died. If a similar program were introduced now, the results would be similar.
“Could the government of the Russian Federation do this?” Polunin asks, and then says that obviously the answer is yes, “but somehow it isn’t doing so.”
Third, suicides. Last year, 35,000 Russians took their own lives – “or 29 for every 100,000 population,” a figure that is “twice greater than the international average” and one that is far greater than in the past except in the years of high Stalinism, 1937 and 1947 when Russian figures were also large.
“It is possible,” Polunin continues, that “a more democratic arrangement of society and more stable social-economic situation would reduce the number of suicides among [Russians]” to the level in the US or Canada (11-12 per 100,000. That would “save” another 17,000 lives for the future.
Fourth, deaths at work. Because Russian employers do not have to pay out large sums if a worker is injured or dies, “our employers prefer not to waste profit on ‘petty things’ like the introducing secure technology. As a result, many Russians die at work. Officially the number is 6,000, but in fact, Polunin says, the real figure may be as high as 190,000. Many could be saved.
And fifth, disappearances. Russian officials acknowledge that some 50,000 people disappear every year in that country, and experts say that almost all of them are dead, killed by others, a reflection of the fact that “the number of murders in Russia is three times that of the US and 19 to 20 times that of the countries of the European Union.”
That means that if Russia could reduce its violent crime to the level of the US, it would save “at a minimum,” 35,000 lives each year, and if it could cut murders to European levels, it could save “practically all of these 50,000,” something that would help the country’s demographic problems far more that pro-natalist pronouncements.
In sum, Polunin says that if Russia had “normal roads, a struggle with drunkenness, order in the system of insuring workers, and the de-criminalization of society,” that would result “at a minimum” in saving 353,000 lives every year. And it is possible that that number could be increased by eliminating medical mistakes as well as taking other steps.
As anyone can see, this would mean nearly “a half million lives saved each year” and that goal is “completely realistic” for the Russian Federation. If birthrates stay where they are, the country’s population would start growing again. “But for this, alas, Russia would have to become a completely different country.”
Staunton, October 22 – If Russia is to slow or even reverse its demographic decline, a Moscow commentator says, it cannot rely on pro-natalist policies alone but much address super-high mortality rates among working-age Russian males that are now ten times higher than for the counterparts in developed countries.
In an article in “Svobodnaya pressa” today, Andrey Polunin points out that despite a slight uptick in the number of births in 2009, an increase linked more to a temporary increase in the number of women in prime years for childbirth rather than to the regime’s pro-natalist policies, “Russia is slowly but surely dying out” (svpressa.ru/society/article/32430/).
For most of the last two decades, the Russian powers that be have tried to address the country’s demographic decline by trying to boost the birthrate, Polunin notes, but despite the “optimism” on this point expressed by President Dmitry Medvedev, such an approach “is practically useless.”
“Such measures [at best] produce a short-term effect,” Polunin points out. “Women give birth to a planned child at what they consider a profitable moment, but they do not become multi-child mothers.” Consequently, pro-natalist efforts, at least of the kind that Moscow has employed, are doing little or nothing to slow the country’s demographic decline.
But he argues that “it is possible to stop the withering away of Russia.” That is obvious if one remembers the observation of one expert that Russia has “European birthrates and African mortality rates” and then decides to focus on the latter. Were Russia to do that and reduce the mortality rates even to the levels of the 1980s, Russia would be growing, not declining.
Efforts to reduce mortality rates not only are possible but can be effective, Polunin says, and he points to the struggle against mortality that the European Union carried out from the 1970s to 2002. Over that period, mortality rates fell dramatically and life expectancy among both men and women increased “more than seven years.”
Russia has even a greater opportunity in this regard that the Europeans did. “Mortality among Russian men of working age exceeds the indicators of the developed countries by ten times and the figures in developing countries by five. Child mortality in Russia is twice as high as it is abroad, and the gap in life expectancy among men and women has reached 13 years.”
In his detailed essay, Polunin examines the situation in five areas where he suggests Russia could make real progress in reducing mortality rates. First of all, deaths on highways. Last year Russia lost more than 26,000 dead from road accidents. Eliminating all deaths on the roads is impossible, but reducing that figure is certainly possible, as the US has shown.
Second, deaths from alcohol. By several orders of magnitude, Russians die more often from alcohol than do residents of other countries. Officially, Russians of all ages consume an average of 18 liters of pure alcohol every year. Experts say the actual figure is closer to 30, and since most children don’t drink, the consumption of alcohol among adults is much higher.
Nikolay Gerasimenko, first deputy chairman of the Duma’s health committee, says that “mortality from alcohol has reached from 350,000 to 700,000 people every year,” and if one adds deaths in which alcohol combined with other problems, losses linked to alcohol are “higher still.”
Mikhail Gorbachev’s anti-alcohol campaign, as unpopular as it was, cut the death rate from alcohol by 200,000 a year for five years, according to Health Minister Tatyana Golikova. That means that one million people lived who otherwise might have died. If a similar program were introduced now, the results would be similar.
“Could the government of the Russian Federation do this?” Polunin asks, and then says that obviously the answer is yes, “but somehow it isn’t doing so.”
Third, suicides. Last year, 35,000 Russians took their own lives – “or 29 for every 100,000 population,” a figure that is “twice greater than the international average” and one that is far greater than in the past except in the years of high Stalinism, 1937 and 1947 when Russian figures were also large.
“It is possible,” Polunin continues, that “a more democratic arrangement of society and more stable social-economic situation would reduce the number of suicides among [Russians]” to the level in the US or Canada (11-12 per 100,000. That would “save” another 17,000 lives for the future.
Fourth, deaths at work. Because Russian employers do not have to pay out large sums if a worker is injured or dies, “our employers prefer not to waste profit on ‘petty things’ like the introducing secure technology. As a result, many Russians die at work. Officially the number is 6,000, but in fact, Polunin says, the real figure may be as high as 190,000. Many could be saved.
And fifth, disappearances. Russian officials acknowledge that some 50,000 people disappear every year in that country, and experts say that almost all of them are dead, killed by others, a reflection of the fact that “the number of murders in Russia is three times that of the US and 19 to 20 times that of the countries of the European Union.”
That means that if Russia could reduce its violent crime to the level of the US, it would save “at a minimum,” 35,000 lives each year, and if it could cut murders to European levels, it could save “practically all of these 50,000,” something that would help the country’s demographic problems far more that pro-natalist pronouncements.
In sum, Polunin says that if Russia had “normal roads, a struggle with drunkenness, order in the system of insuring workers, and the de-criminalization of society,” that would result “at a minimum” in saving 353,000 lives every year. And it is possible that that number could be increased by eliminating medical mistakes as well as taking other steps.
As anyone can see, this would mean nearly “a half million lives saved each year” and that goal is “completely realistic” for the Russian Federation. If birthrates stay where they are, the country’s population would start growing again. “But for this, alas, Russia would have to become a completely different country.”
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