The Natural Enviroment
...et model of economic development after WW2, Poland embarked on the expansion of its energy and heavy industries: coal mining, electricity production, steel, concrete, shipbuilding (typical dirty work!). The development was dedicated to the idea of unbridled technology and unlimited production and consumption viewing nature as infinite and waste as no problem. Even today the country is still dependent on domestically produced coal, especially the brown coal Lignite, which has led to rising levels of atmospheric, sea and soil pollution. However the institutional structures of state socialism made matters considerably worse. The inefficiency of the Polish economy meant that older and more polluting plants were kept running for longer and as a result deteriorating every week. Investment in new technology was blocked by lack of foreign exchange, and pollution regulation under the Communists was rarely enforced, all in a political climate where any threat of local or national protest was suppressed by the secret police. The only good thing to come out of Poland’s scarcity of capital is that the Communist leaders never seriously embarked on a nuclear programme (unlike other Eastern Bloc countries). The environmental consequences of state socialism have fallen most heavily upon some of Poland’s cities, the most affected being Upper Silesia in the Southwest. The main city in this area is the sprawling industrial conurbation is Katowice.Households and industry here consumes massive amounts of locally mined coal for production and heating. Also zinc and lead ores are mined and smelted, and the region receives a large amount of atmospheric pollution from Northern Bohemia (Czech Republic) and Saxony (East Germany). Together these areas form “ The Black Triangle” producing a nice cocktail of sulpher dioxide, nitrogen oxides, dust and particulates. Smog and ozone pollutants.25% of total atmospheric emissions are generated in this 2% of the country and that is excluding the range of carcinogenic chemicals produced and released by factories into local communities. To the East of Katowice lies Krakow, birthplace of the Pope. The pope recently visited Krakow in summer 2002, and his aides privately admitted that he was shocked and saddened by the widespread damage to historical structures and monuments due to the levels of pollution. The city houses the infamous Nowa Huta steelworks (subject o...