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''Yeah, we really want this environment to be clean, let's just pump some more garbage in the ocean because we really feel like protecting the environment''. Makes people look more like liars over anything else. But I guess it makes sense, the country with the biggest debt can't be honest to themselves.
the movements and mentality that have led to a range of standards that protect the USA from the downward environmental spiral that is china are pretty much wholly separate from the usual politics and corporate negligence. you can find those latter two everywhere, you know.
in your mind it sounds like you think green movements are somehow in league with neocons, think tanks and corporations to mix their various POV's in to a bogeyman bad guy you can safely bitch about while remaining planted on your couch, pointing fingers and doing nothing yourself. right, duderino?
LOL.
IIRC bush jr was in office when it came time to sign kyoto. see the link there? the green movt in the USA has nothing to do with a guy like that. do you understand what the word "separate" means...?
- Stat ratify laws and sign agreement for environmental protec ;
- Stat enforce the laws on environment protec ;
- Industry comply with legislation on environment protec ;
- Pollution downwards.
In reality :
- Stat discuss about laws and agreement for environmental protec ;
- Industrial lobby acte so that the government give up ;
- Stat give up those law and keep quiet about it until population forget about it (~2-3 months) ;
- Industrial lobby can continue to pollute as much as before ;
- Green movement facepalm but no ones care about it in government.
So, in the first step, if you vote for a moron who doesn't give a fuck about environmental issues, or give more interest in lobby gifts, you're fucked up. And sadly, it's not your unimportant green movement who will change the situation.
And the problem here is the position of moralizer against chinees pollution when, US is the first pollutant in the world. Even if you are a member of the green movement, american isn't in position to do this kind of comments, even if you do not agree with the pollitics. Or at least, keep a bit of your critical eye for you own country.
i'm not american, but i understand this stuff pretty well. i never called myself part of the "green movt." i have many, many issues with the USA and i often comment here about those. i am angry with the USA in many ways but i am also angry with the chinese govt.
china is one of the most (or the most) ancient and culturally beautiful civilisations in the world. i have had lots of chinese / taiwanese friends in my life and because of that i have a strong liking for all things chinese.
at the same time, i have big problems with mao, who basically began the program of trading away the future for the present in order to catch up to the west. modern chinese leadership tried to improve from his ridiculous ideas, but fell in to some of the same traps.
i hate, hate, hate reading about the poor people laboring in factory towns whose children have no future because of heavy metals and general pollution causing them to get sick so early in life. i hate reading about people trying to breath the air in beijing and getting early lung cancer. it is dreadful, and i full sorry and also guilty, since the west directly exploits chinese factory production.
anyway...
civilisation itself is the 'first polluter' in modern human history, and china is likely one of the first.... thousands of years ago before modern europe and the USA came along.
the higher the standard of ore smelting, gunpowder manufacture, etc, the more unsustainable you are operating in the field of natural law. you produce more waste that doesn't break down, you spoil the land and need to move, etc etc.
USA is guilty of many things, but you cannot say that USA is the first polluter.
also, muir and roosevelt were doing amazing things for the USA environment around 1900 or so. that's why USA has the national forest system, and part of why the EPA was created later.
politics will always be politics, that's the way of life, but the EPA makes it much harder for big business in the USA to spoil the environment like china.
it's not a competition to me. i would never say USA is better than china or vice-versa. it's just a shame for many reasons, but also because when china falls, then we all fall.
good luck, brother.