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Poverty around the world contributes to pollution in ways that most don't realize. Industrialized countries with well organized citizenry tend to rein in corporate polluters much more than poorer countries where regulation is lax and penalties are nonexistent.

Corruption and lack of oversight are the main causes of pollution, where the effect on our planet's environment and the lives of its populace are secondary to profit. "Progress" is the word most often used to explain a lack of global conscience. Many people believe that America is the greatest polluter in the world, yet few take the effort to search for the proof of that contention.

The fact is that none of the top ten most polluted cities in the world are in America. According to CNN and The World Bank, sixteen of the twenty worst polluted cities in the world are in China. Many of the lists vary slightly in their rankings, but most agree that Linfen, China is the most polluted city on the planet. Russia, and countries that were previously part of the Soviet Union, also have a disproportionate number of cities in the top thirty five. India, Zambia, Peru, the Dominican Republic, Guyana, the Philippines, and Mexico also have the dubious honor of presence on the list of top polluters.

All of the countries whose cities are listed above have one thing in common; poverty. Poverty robs the population in these countries of the right to have a voice in what decisions are made that affect the health of their children. Expediency is the excuse for short range thinking in countries where the benefits of industrialization outweigh the welfare of those who labor in their coal mines and chemical plants.

Listed below is a ranking of the top ten polluted cities on the planet.

1. Linfen, China
2. Tianying, China
3. Sukinda, India
4. Vapi, India
5. La Oroya, Peru
6. Dzerzhinsk, Russia
7. Norilsk, Russia
8. Chernobyl, Ukraine
9. Sumgayit, Azerbaijan
10. Kabwe, Zambia

Two of the thirty five most polluted cities in the world are in the United States. Hanford, Connecticut, which was the site of a nuclear waste dump until 1987, has been the focus of ongoing toxic cleanup efforts that is estimated to cost American tax payers 1.4 million dollars a day. The other American city on the list is New Orleans, Louisiana where Hurricane Katrina caused massive environmental damage when levees broke, and rising waters inundated business and residence alike, creating a toxic soup that remained in the soil after those waters receded.

Once again, it becomes evident that environmental impact must be part of the planning for infrastructure and energy production. When the overwhelming poverty of a nation allows its government it to disregard basic safety and the poisoning of its people for the sake of progress, we all lose.

The gentrified world empathizes with victims of famine and natural disaster. The temporary aid that is provided soothes the conscience and puts to rest the nagging feeling that more could be done. Equally important though is an end to the apathy that tacitly permits the rape of our environment, and the abandonment of those in poverty who are helplessly suffering due to governmental and corporate mismanagement.

References:

Full List 2006 Blacksmith Institute
http://www.blacksmithinstitute .org/top10/worst35d.html

Time/CNN
http://www.time.com/time/speci als/2007/0,28757,1661031,00.ht ml

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