Emerging Environmental Issues and Institutional Responses in Korea

Abstract

So many and diverse problems that affect the quality of life can be treated as "environmental" issues. In recent years it is even fashionable in the field of environment-related studies to be all-encompassing in conceptualizing ones subjects of inquiry. As an author claims, "under this broad definition of environment all of the ills of man emerge as environmental problems-poverty, prejudice, public education, health services, militarism, inner circles and pollution all qualify as environmental crisis." (1) Hence, the concept of "environment" no longer provides any objective criteria by which to circumscribe the appropriate boundary of the subject-matters of an inquiry. Confronted with such a conceptual ambiguity, the only sensible way of delimiting the scope of inquiry is to rely upon ones own judgment of practical relevance of the particular subject-matters or areas to be chosen. Though a little risky and somewhat speculative, the total set of environmental issues may be divided into sub-sets: namely, one of those which concern environmental degradation resulting from economic growth and industrialization and the other of those which can be considered as the attributes of poverty in pre-industrialization stage. The former are of the "effluents of affluence" and the latter are of the "pollution of under-development." Some typical examples of environmental problems that belong to the former are increasing amount of toxic emissions by industries, destruction of wildlife due to technological abuses, and other environmental dis amenities resulting as consequences of rising level of material consumption, while such common attributes of under-development as an unsanitary water supply, grossly poor conditions of shelter, and inadequate transport facilities and so forth may be included in the latter.