ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, January 14, 1996 TAG: 9601150053
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: Associated Press
Some of the world's most maligned regimes are making strides in protecting humanity from the disaster of an over-exploited world, according to the latest State of the World report.
The annual book-length report being published today by the independent Worldwatch Institute finds mostly bad news around the globe but cites progress from unexpected sources: the governments of China and Iran.
It also praises five countries in Europe for environmentally sound economic policies. Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, Spain and Britain gradually are shifting away from taxing income to taxing activities that destroy the environment, the report says.
In addition, Germany has begun the first broad political shift in favor of wholesale restructuring of a tax system, the report said. The United States, in contrast, lags behind, said Worldwatch's president, Lester R. Brown.
``We're subsidizing things that just don't make sense anymore,'' Brown said in an interview before the report's release. ``We should tax mining and subsidize recycling.''
He decried the fact that the debate over U.S. tax reform has not focused on such a switch.
The Worldwatch report is published in 27 languages, including a Persian edition printed in Teheran and a Beijing edition, and is distributed to government officials around the world.
Worldwatch is a nonprofit, environmental research organization supported by grants and sale of its publications.
State of the World editions over the last decade have highlighted a broad array of environmental, social and political problems affecting the planet's future, with a sparse dose of optimism over efforts to reverse the trend.
``The bottom line is that the physical condition of the earth continues to deteriorate on almost every front,'' Brown said.
But Brown and the report reserve some positive analysis for the regime of Iran and Beijing's communist rulers.
Noting Iran's acute scarcity of land and water, Brown said the government has limited housing, health and education subsidies to the first three children in a family.
``Iran is making a desperate effort to get off the demographic path that would more than double its 1995 population of 61 million to 131 million by 2030,'' Brown said. ``Painful though this initiative may be, it could avoid far greater suffering down the road.''
China, too, has turned to taxation policies aimed at slowing population growth, he noted, taxing each birth after the first. Even so, ``China's soaring grain imports are helping drive world grain prices to near-record highs,'' Brown said.
The report says world grain stocks have dropped to an all-time low of 49 days' consumption. It also gives new evidence that rising storm activity around the world, partially attributed to global warming by the report, has boosted property damage claims to insurance companies.
Chapters on water problems provide new tables showing that 20 percent of freshwater fish species are threatened worldwide and that groundwater depletion has become a global problem.
Overall, the report notes hotter summers, falling water tables, continuing deforestation, accelerating species extinctions and rising food prices due to depleted resources.
On a positive note, the report says 30 countries have reached zero population growth, representing about 819 million people. But it says the poorest countries still are growing too fast for tightened world food supplies.
LENGTH: Medium: 71 linesby CNB