Increasingly intolerable boundaries: future control of environmental pollution

In recent years, there have been a number of toxic accidents on the sea and on land which have caused pollution down current, down wind and down strea m. Four were dramatic and these four have led to substantial changes in the way we deal with risk to the environment. There have also been increasing concerns about a less spectacular but equally concerning problem, acid rain , though attempts to deal with this problem have been less successful. Perh aps the drama was lacking. In all these cases, unfortunately, the less deve loped countries can ill afford the costs of prevention and this means they are often the home of environmentally unfriendly development. While the cur rent approaches to such problems will continue, it is likely that the count ries on the receiving end of such pollution, especially if they have econom ic and military power, will seek more forceful solutions. One outcome may b e a UN-sponsored environmental police force. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.