Look at this shit.............. http://www.chinahush.com/2009/10/21/amazing-pictures-pollution-in-china/# Fuck me edit....a nuclear bomb would make that country cleaner I think.
And yet the argument is we should cripple our economy by massively increasing the cost of our energy through feel-good renewable energy. All that's going to do is lower the cost of China's dirty fuels and increase the percentage of goods produced there. In other words, you need to fix China before you try to turn the US into a land of windmills. They get to play by a different set of rules, and it's a suicide pact to limit our options. P.S. Someone needs to remind me again why we don't massively increase our use of nuclear energy.
It should be noted that China and India are going through the typical cycle of industrial development. As China becomes more industrial, their people will become more prosperous. As they become more prosperous they will desire to live in a clean environment. The Brits went through it in the late 19th Century and we went through it in the early 20th Century.
That was the first thing that came to mind, why should we try to clean up our country when they do that? Then, even if we could clean up our country to the way it was when Lewis and Clark explored the west it wouldn't make up for what they are doing. Then, I thought why doesn't someone stand outside of a Walmart with those pictures. I just don't know what we should do.
Well, the first thing we can do is not to cripple American manufacturing through union requirements and cap and trade. Corporations have no national identity; they produce where it's cheapest. Incentivize people to be able to produce goods in the US.
Ok, instead of cap and trade or anything else the govt wants right now, how do we reverse the course we are on? All things being equal and Walmart sold a toaster made in the USA for 25 dollars instead of one made in China for 8 dollars, what would happen to our economy? Would a double cheeseburger from McDonalds go up to 3.50 instead of 1.19? I fix cars, not economies so how do average people know what to do?
And just think, they rewarded these people with the Olympics! I saw a feature on 60 minutes last month, there is a region somewhere in China that is like the the location companies all over the world send old computers and monitors to be "recycled" It is messed up! The rivers glow in the fucking dark and everybody has cancer!
Population control. It's a fucking sick display of industrial revolution. Like others have said, it happened here too not too many decades ago. It's sick to see what happens to the environment, then it makes me really sick to see what it does to the innocent children and elderly.
We are the enablers. Buy American! As for unions, maxiep, who do you think forced American industry to accept/implement safe, responsible treatment of waste, the practice of recycling, and the procuction of quality products that last. Unions made us a Superpower. Their defeat is our defeat. Before the labor unions came along, American industry was China. Building crappy stuff and piling up the waste.
That's funny my first thought when I saw these pictures was "No price is too high to avoid turning my beloved country into a hellscape like that." Also, you think that's sustainable? They are having 100's of riots throughout that country on a daily basis. People are revolting against the utter annihilation of their land and the death of 10,000's of children from cancer and respiratory illnesses from pollution. Who wants to live in that kind of nightmare? The Chinese will wipe themselves out in a decade or two at the rate they are going. I say threaten to default on our debt if they don't clean up and agree to sign environmental pacts with the BRIC nations and try and get global agreements, just like our limits on Nuclear weapons for this kind of environmental eco-cide. I find it interesting that the same folks leary of global emissions pacts are wanting China to clean up while not signing on to similar legislation on our end. Ridiculous, it's crystal clear that global environmental agreements are CRITICAL. Otherwise China's model will spread around the globe and we will race to the bottom. A few years of China style industrial wasteland on a global level would be the nail in the coffin for this planet. To look at those pictures and have any other reaction then revulsion and desire to see it cleaned up is the HEIGHT of insanity. Ask yourself do you want this happening to people in our country?: And do you want this: to be turned into this: This is like a suicide competition to want to emulate the Chinese in any way. Let them kill themselves off, we supposedly found a better way in the latter half of the 20th century. Let's not devolve.
You don't understand what I mean, I mean that we could filter our water and stop polluting and clean every toxic superfund site up in this country and those fuckers will ruin the planet by themselves. It would be like digging up Elvis and cutting his fingernails, what would be the point? Do you really think China's model will spread around the globe? Really? How could anyone look at what those bastards are doing and justify it with money? I agree with letting them kill themselves off, but then I think a nuclear bomb or 100 would do a better, quicker job.
This is what you get with communism: a country that doesn't care about its people or its environment. Same thing happened in the former Soviet Union. They ruined the entire Aral Sea and some of the largest river systems in the world.
So...we were a communist country when we had some of these same issues less than 50 years ago? If anything, it's greed that causes these things. No one wants to pay the costs to regulate industry.
+1 Communist, Socialist, Capitalist, Fascist...it doesn't matter. When people become greedy they will "win" at any cost. Nothing wrong with making a profit (except on health care ) but there is something wrong when you're doing what they are doing. I've read reports that China's pollution is drifting over and hitting Oregon/Washington quite a bit. I think we'll see scenes like this again throughout the world where there is some dictator looking to make a buck, but I don't think we'll see it on the scale of China.
Not if we stick to a higher standard and marry that with dis-incentives for their kind of reckless behavior.. I think they should be boycotted and sanctioned for this just like we are considering with Iran and their Nuclear weapons program. To me it's as big or a bigger threat then Nuclear proliferation. I say this because polluting is automatically incentivized by being cheaper then clean industry such as you have in the EU or US. You can't try incentivize things by racing to the bottom as Maxiep suggests or you can, but the end result is armageddon. Instead you have to de-incentivize what China is doing through boycotts and sanctions if they are unwilling to meet the same environmental standards we have. If not they can pollute themselves into oblivion, but we won't subsidize them doing so. If we don't have global standards for this sort of thing then you will see, just as Maxiep suggests, a race to whatever country has the lowest human rights and environmental standards in the world. That is precisely what happened. The answer isn't to roll back environmental standards, but rather to ensure that we have a global standard. This is difficult as long as we are in strict and even deadly competition with one another. Ultimately, you don't have to buy this garbage if you don't want to. Buy USA and vote with your dollar! P.S. China's model is the same as the US in the turn of the last century or England in the mid 1800's so it's not new, but it can no longer be replicated. China's is possibly worse then Britains industrialization period which is staggering.
Unions served their purpose. The government now takes care to ensure workers have safe working conditions and that employment laws are followed. Like the buggywhip, however, their time has passed. All they are now is an externality imposed on the American consumer.
If you do as you suggest and get rid of unions then wages become an externality that is cut to the bone and beyond, because you just move to a place where there is slave labor. The answer is not to trade with slavers or ecocidal (or genocidal) maniacs. Whether it be Iran's threat to wipe out Israel or China's destruction of the ecosystem you don't negotiate or trade with terrorists. China is the REAL environmental terrorist and is a much bigger threat then some guys in caves somewhere.
