Ecobreves – CHILE: Government and Ecologists Clash over Pollution

By IPS Correspondents and - - Reprint | | Print |

SANTIAGO, Jul 27 2009 (IPS) - The Chilean government began an environmental education campaign – “Care for the Air: Breathe Easy” – to encourage using bicycles and public transportation instead of individual cars, dampening the ground before sweeping to prevent raising dust, and to discourage the burning of leaves in the polluted national capital. The campaign “does help some,” but fails to act correctly in the government's structural measures, Patricio Herman, of the non-governmental group Defend the City, told Tierramérica. His group and two others have asked the national Comptroller's Office to return the decree for reformulation in its goal of cleaning up Santiago's air pollution.

Their request focuses on the addition of an article that exempts existing industries from complying with the rules for emissions of nitrogen oxides and new industries from paying due compensation – exemptions that Herman considers a “joke”.