Vol. 1(2) SEP 2011 - SAVAP International

Academic Research International
ISSN: 2223-9553
Volume 1, Issue 2, September 2011
total suspended particulates (TSP), using ambient air quality data, and several water-quality
parameters such as biochemical oxygen demand.
Selden and Song had studied particulates, SO x , NO x and CO. All except CO showed the
inverted U-shape relationship. And the turning points in the curve for the three pollutants
showing the relationship were in the region of 10,000 US dollars. This figure is about at the
dividing line between upper-middle-income and high-income countries in 1988. But this level
is well above Malaysia’s per capita GDP in the 1987-91 period. Selden and Song’s results
then suggest that Malaysia’s air pollution emissions should have been rising during 1987-91.
Vincent found that the emissions did indeed rise for particulates, NO x and CO, but the
increases were much smaller than predicted by Selden and Song’s estimated relationships.
However, SO x declined considerably, and for a very simple reason: emissions by power
plants declined sharply during the period in question. But this was not because of some new
environmental policy. It was because big natural gas reserves had been found in Malaysia;
and the government decided to reduce dependence on imported fuel oil by converting power
plants to natural gas. If it had not discovered natural gas, or, if it had decided to export all the
gas it produced instead of raising consumption by domestic power plants, emissions of SO x
would not have declined so steeply as they in fact did, if at all. “Geology and a desire for
energy independence, not rising income and associated environmental policy responses, were
responsible for the decline in SO x emissions”.
In the study of changes over time for TSP and water-quality parameters, Vincent found that
the inverted U-shaped relationship was not found for any of the factors investigated. Either
income was not significantly associated with the factor (three water-quality parameters) or it
maintained a positive relationship (TSP and two water-quality parameters) – “rising income
worsened pollution”.
Ayers (1995) went further than Arrow and colleagues in being sceptical over the general
proposition that economic growth is good for the environment. In fact he concluded the
proposition was “false and pernicious nonsense”. Remember that Arrow et al had noted that
the relationship had not been found for resource depletion. Now Ayres notes that economic
growth is historically closely correlated with increased consumption of energy and other
resources. He also notes that “most of the environmental problems of regional and global
concern are directly traceable to the unsustainable use of fossil fuels and/or other materials,
such as toxic heavy metals and chlorinated chemicals”. Further he notes a general
consequence of the basic physical law of conservation of mass – “every material extracted
from the environment is a potential waste…Except for materials used in construction, raw
materials (and fuels) usually become wastes or pollutants within months or a few years at
most”.
O'Neill et al (1996) are equally sceptical. They consider that the empirical relationship that
had been discussed by Arrow (ibid), between environmental quality and GDP adopts a trivial
definition of environmental quality as it is only based on a subset of pollutants in a limited
number of places. This is inadequate to encompass “the complex interactions between
economic growth and the environment on which that growth depends”.
Such a simplification of the total environmental situation ignores the importance of "basic
ecosystem services: cleaning the water, purifying the air, decomposing wastes, maintaining
CO 2 balance, permitting recovery from natural disturbances, filtering ultraviolet radiation,
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