Quote:
Originally Posted by Bobblehead
And why do anything when places like China are just going to continue their polluting ways. Our pollution is a drop in the bucket compared to theirs, so why ruin our economy for nothing?
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Traditional_Ale
Not picking on you, but this quote is totally asinine. The average north american with all of our "clean energy" use 11X (yes, ELEVEN EFFING TIMES) the amount of energy than the Chinese. Maybe we should de-louse our own closet before we go point fingers at the country that produces all my audio cable and teen pron?
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Two points that need clearification. First off, China - like any other developing countries - sacks its environment so the economy can grow. Once a country starts to become move into first world status, they start to clean up their environment and their standards. Read up on how China has shored up on their standards the past 5 years Bobblehead, its very well documented in most major scientific publications.
Also, I think people are confusing dirty with pollution cause of things like SARS. Places like Beijing and Shanghai might be a lot cleaner versus 10 years ago, but the non-major cities are a ceasepool of breading diseases. Horrible as far as health standards go, but not really the cause of pollution.
Don't think the 1st world doesn't have their hands dirty in this, though. Look at some of the plants major US companies have in South America, like Peru. Just because the operations arn't in North America, doesn't mean its not our fault - it very much is.
To Trad's - the reason is, very likely, most of China is still villages of poverty while someone in LA is driving 2 hours to work on the highway. I wouldn't say Canada/USA is 11x's worse then the China, because those villages make China look artificially good.
Also, a consideration that has to be taken into place is, developing countries are just installing their infrastructure while 1st world countries already have infrastructure there while developing countries have a chance to choose which direction they want to design their infrastructure. Calgary will always be a driving city, and it will be very hard to change that. Anywhere in California will always be a network of highways and tons of CO2 emissions while cars snail along on the highway - and that really isn't going to change. Its interesting to see what these developing world can do - contrary to Bobblehead's belief - for environmentally friendly infrastructure development. Just look at Dongtan.
