Some of the arguments in this thread remind me of when my kids were children, or perhaps when I was a kid and the frequent refrain when called out on bad behavior was “But s/he’s doing it too!” Or “What about them?!!” With a dollop of “ it’s not fair!!!” Heavy on the whine.
It is true that China, Indonesia as well as some emerging nations are less environmentally responsible than people in this thread would like them to be. I can well see how some parts of the world see this as hypocrisy because, after all, the US and Australia and most of Europe already have modernized economies and cities, Europe being ahead of the US in terms of efficiency. Largely at the expense of emerging nations. And then, until recently, the US shipped a lot of its garbage to China and of course the more Western countries have been happy to have the environments of emerging nations trashed while valuable minerals, lumber, minerals, oil, and other resources were being harvested, largely for the benefit of a western technology. I’m not saying that emerging nations have not benefited—but for the purposes of this discussion, we are talking about only environmental issues. We trashed other people’s environment while patting ourselves in the back for the little we do to protect our own environment.
Then, too, in the US there are the coal and oil industries, and proposed mining of valuable minerals in pristine wilderness areas, as well as fracking and sand mining to support extraction of natural gas—all of which cause grave environmental harms that will last hundreds of years. Of course these are generally being carried out in areas where the land is cheap and population is more sparse and also more poor and hungry foreign a better life for their children.
The reality is that we all need to do what we can to reduce our environmental footprint on the earth—in the US, that means mostly by consuming less…of everything. I blame Ronald Reagan directly fir the rabid consumerism that he promoted as patriotic. But never mind: we need to change how we live. It means voting for politicians who will enact more and better environmental policies. It means supporting technological advances that will make us more energy efficient. It means helping emerging economies prosper while avoiding devastating or even harmful environmental effects.
This needs to be done regardless of whether or not China cleans up their act. Let’s face it: this cleaning up of acts is relatively new and not universal in the US, Australia and Europe. Every little bit helps.
Eventually even giants like China will feel the pressure, economic, political and social to do more and to do better. Hell, maybe even Florida and Texas will! Maybe even western states who are draining dry rivers to grow almonds that can be made into ‘milk’ that ‘environmentally conscience’ hipsters drink instead of real milk because cows produce methane and meat is murder will change.
The sad truth is that the most effective motivator is monetary. This is true of almost anything you can name.
Ultimately, we cannot let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
