LETTER FROM STOCKHOLM

It was probably too much to expect, but one hoped the UN Conference on the Environment in Stockholm would have had some concrete results. But the conference became a political free-for-all between the industrial and the underdeveloped nations, and a forum in which to condemn America.

Perhaps the vastness of the problems and the inadequately worked out agenda were responsible. The problems were legion, but little discrimination was used for deciding the priority of questions. Some nations were concerned with overpopulation. (Not China; its chief delegate, Minister of Fuel Supply Tang Ke, said: “Population increases constitute no danger either to productivity or the environment.”) When Argentina made a proposal it was violently opposed by Brazil. Madame Gandhi, in Sweden on a state visit, proposed a total ban on nuclear tests (which China and France opposed). Guinea wanted South Vietnam thrown out; the Chinese went Guinea one better and called for the ouster of South Korea as well. Tanzania called for a condemnation of apartheid as part of the final declaration of the conference.

EB

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Eric Brodin

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It was probably too much to expect, but one hoped the UN Conference on the Environment in Stockholm would have had some concrete results. But the conference became a political free-for-all between the industrial and the underdeveloped nations, and a forum in which to condemn America.

Perhaps the vastness of the problems and the inadequately worked out agenda were responsible. The problems were legion, but little discrimination was used for deciding the priority of questions. Some nations were concerned with overpopulation. (Not China; its chief delegate, Minister of Fuel Supply Tang Ke, said: “Population increases constitute no danger either to productivity or the environment.”) When Argentina made a proposal it was violently opposed by Brazil. Madame Gandhi, in Sweden on a state visit, proposed a total ban on nuclear tests (which China and France opposed). Guinea wanted South Vietnam thrown out; the Chinese went Guinea one better and called for the ouster of South Korea as well. Tanzania called for a condemnation of apartheid as part of the final declaration of the conference.