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| Vorontsov says his goal is to set up and enforce environmental standards comparable to the strict curbs imposed in Western Europe. He maintains that the government has already begun a crackdown. It closed the country's only cellophane plant because of an air-pollution problem, and in the past year has stopped construction of two nuclear-power plants. Yet Vorontsov admits he could face stiff resistance. Because the Soviet people are increasingly restive about shortages of consumer goods, the government will be under pressure to crank up industrial production, and that could bring even more pollution. "Many people are still so concerned with fulfilling their production plans that they don't think about the future," says Vorontsov.
The fate of the Soviet environment may depend in large part on the success or failure of perestroika, Gorbachev's wholesale political and economic restructuring. If the government encourages higher, more realistic prices for raw materials, industry will have greater incentive to increase efficiency and thus curb waste and pollution. And if planning is decentralized, engineers and factory managers are likely to become more sensitive to local environmental concerns.
A major impediment to progress is the sorry state of the Soviets' technological base. Their outmoded machinery is less energy efficient and more polluting than modern equipment. The Soviets realize that they need technology from other countries. They are counting on the U.S., Europe and Japan to recognize that pollution in the Soviet Union can ultimately be dangerous to everyone. In fact, the increasing interdependence of all the world's nations underlay much of the conference, which was held beneath a gigantic photo of the planet earth. As a first step toward forging a united campaign to protect the planet, the Moscow meeting ended with an unprecedented two-hour TV and radio broadcast that was beamed live to more than 100 nations. The broadcast was made possible by the collaboration of Intelsat, the West's satellite communications system, and Intersputnik, its East bloc counterpart -- a good example of the kind of cooperation the environmental movement will need to be successful.