Ahmadinejad blames US for environmental degradation

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took the US responsible for producing one fourth of environmental pollution in the world, and said the wrong consumerist culture promoted by the US and other western countries has intensified the global environmental degradation. "25% of the (world's) environmental hazards are produced by one country which, at maximum, has 5% of the world's population," Ahmadinejad said, addressing an international conference on irrigation and drainage in Tehran on Wednesday. He reiterated that most world countries have called on the US and other western countries to reform their production systems, "but they reject the demands of all nations using their political power". Noting that the West has stimulated and directed an endless consumerism competition in the world, Ahmadinejad said, "While they have no plan for the management of natural resources and proper preservation and distribution of water resources, they advertise for increasing consumption." Iran has always blamed the hegemonic powers for environmental degradation in the world, saying that they have polluted the environment carelessly. "The hegemonic system destroys and pollutes the environment carelessly and takes no responsibility for it," Ahmadinejad said in September 2010. Earlier, the Iranian president had in 2009 highlighted the necessity for preserving the environment, and asked for applying advanced methods in the field of environment protection. Also in his 2009 remarks, President Ahmadinejad noted that the philosophy behind environment protection is proper planning for taking maximum advantage of the existing resources, elongation of their exploitation period through taking scientific use and assisting the nature to remain productive.