China Declares War on Pollution

[Indy]

[Spider]

Until Beijing becomes visible from space again, I'm calling this a political token action. They can't afford to screw up their export economy by increasing costs via any serious environmental protections.

[Indy]

Well they're going to have to make a choice--cheap production or people unable to breathe and dead pigs floating everywhere.

And I would say spending half a trillion dollars is a bit more than a "token action." And from whom would they be hoping to gain points "politically"? Certainly not us, because we've made it clear that clean air, water and land means nothing: only profit does. As we now literally are fracking across the country, ignoring all the scary things going on with that--or literally trying to impede people who want to go solar because the Koch brothers don't want to see one less dime in their bottom line.

That said, what are we doing? We're actually going backwards, which is mind-blowing. But even the unthinkable becomes acceptable when you dip it in political sauce.

People who aren't taking this as a hoax? The U.S. military. Insurance companies. Hell ask the mayor of Miami what he thinks.

[Spider]

No, I mean domestically. The people who live there want to see action on this. Everyone else in the world seems perfectly willing to use China as the globe's heavy industrial zoned wasteland, and China seems perfectly happy to take their money in return. The money comes in significant part because China allows heavy industry to basically straight-pipe their way to the lowest price. Start screwing with that, and China becomes a less attractive place to do business, and the jobs go somewhere else. The reason the developed world has been able to clean up its act isn't because we magically found ways to do everything cleanly...its because we simply outsourced the dirty work to places like China. And now China is going to have to do the same....but where do they outsource to? Africa, somewhat. But that's going to take time.

So, enivironment reform will have to be a gradual process, or it can can cause some serious economic shocks. Yes, I know you want everything be all idealistic and clean and happy and whatever, but as you said, money talks. If anything China needs to find a good way to monetize this, and drive it with profit motive. Good luck to them on that score, everyone else has been trying for a long time with very limited results.

[Indy]

[spacemonkey]

If I ever have to burn coal to keep from freezing my ass off in the winter, I will, no matter who says what.

[Indy]

[exploited]

[The Comrade]

imagine if christians were that "passionate" about killing abortion doctors. imagine if republicans were that passionate about gutting civil rights. imagine if bush was that passionate about bombing the middle east.

it should say "imagine if everyone was this passionate about the things i agree with"

[Indy]

OK and who doesn't agree with us needing clean air, water and land?