Is the environment hurting public health in Russia?
The Financial Times reports:
Russia’s bleak environmental record has pushed it to the bottom of a new global ranking of how countries have been tackling pollution and managing their natural resources in the first decade of the century.
A “severe breakdown” in environmental public health in Russia between 2000 and 2010, as well as a worsening performances on overfishing and forest losses, means it has shown the least improvement of 132 countries studied in a report by researchers at Yale and Columbia universities in the US.
“This is one of the big stories [of the study],” said Daniel C. Esty, a Yale professor, pointing out that Russia’s exploitation of its vast natural resources appeared at times to be “unchecked by basic regulation” – hitting its air and water quality… [Emphasis added]
We don’t doubt that Russia’s environment is not nearly as clean that of Western countries — but there appears to be no evidence in this reports that it is affecting public health.