Effects
The pollution produced by heavy industry seriously degraded air quality. The air contained high concentrations of sulfur dioxide because the energy production was largely based on combustion of fuel high in sulfur. As a result, 50 percent of the forests were either dead or dying. Cases of bronchitis and asthma in children almost doubled with the increase in the use of sulfur dioxide. The water, too, was affected by the excessive pollution, both from industrial fertilizers and oil spills. The lack of water waste treatment meant that a large portion of the water was undrinkable for the population, and some of the water was so bad that it was even unusable by the industry. Conditions were worst in Northern Bohemia, which was a part of the so-called ‘triangle of death’ that also included South-East East Germany and South-West Poland, but the effects were also felt beyond the region in which the pollution originated. The Danube River carried much of the pollution to other areas of the state and other countries, and acid rain brought the pollution directly to the cities, where it could eat away at the buildings and statues.
Read more about this topic: Effects On The Environment In Czechoslovakia From Soviet Influence During The Cold War
Famous quotes containing the word effects:
“If one judges love according to the greatest part of the effects it produces, it would appear to resemble rather hatred than kindness.”
—François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680)
“Trade and commerce, if they were not made of India-rubber, would never manage to bounce over the obstacles which legislators are continually putting in their way; and, if one were to judge these men wholly by the effects of their actions and not partly by their intentions, they would deserve to be classed and punished with those mischievous persons who put obstructions on the railroads.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Perspective, as its inventor remarked, is a beautiful thing. What horrors of damp huts, where human beings languish, may not become picturesque through aerial distance! What hymning of cancerous vices may we not languish over as sublimest art in the safe remoteness of a strange language and artificial phrase! Yet we keep a repugnance to rheumatism and other painful effects when presented in our personal experience.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)