Just some food for thought when people blame the US for pollution

Also

"In terms of air quality, the World Bank has been quoted as estimating that 16 of the 20 most polluted cities in the world were in China."
 
It's easier to blame the US for everything that's wrong with the world because we have a bajillion soft-hearted gaywads willing to listen and whine about it.
 
KNYTE said:
It's easier to blame the US for everything that's wrong with the world because we have a bajillion soft-hearted gaywads willing to listen and whine about it.
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Well it's a good thing I am not a wad of gay and this is a non-gay thread then.
 
ChikkenNoodul said:
Mehico has one of 'em as well.

And Mother Russia probably won't release any of their stats to anyone, since I'm sure they have all KINDS of lovely waste left over from the cold war.
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breathing the air in Mexico City is supposed to the equivalent of smoking 2 packs of cigs a day
 
those who blame the US are probably talking about pollution generated per person, not in total.

i heard recently though that if they could put out coal fires, emissions standards wouldn't be necessary, and we would have more energy available for the future.
 
I think a lot of it is political, you know you hear much more about the US's global impact right around election times and more often than not these are simply red herrings used to distract the sheep of the US from considering true issues.
 
China is what we were 100 years ago as far as industrial pollution. They're demand is too high to care about pollution, and no one is making them change.
 
[dirtyhippyrant]Pollution is such a complex issue. All of those places on that map don't mention anything about CO2 emissions which is probably the biggest issue we are facing, and this is where the US fails in the environmental friendly realm. And sure, the US doesn't burn a whole lot of coal, but we export tons of it so other countries can burn it and take the blame for the problems it causes. We aren't the worst, but it doesn't mean we shouldn't care. If we, as a world, don't stop emitting so much CO2 into the atmosphere, global warming will become a very real and scary problem. I believe we have about 50 years to address this issue. Sure, dumping stuff into our water supply is horrid, and we all need to stop doing that, but if our ice caps continue to melt none of it will really matter.

I take issue with Zengirl saying that hearing about the environment is a lot of political BS that we hear around election time to take our minds off of the real issues. This IS the biggest issue we face. If we don't have a planet to live off of anymore because we've all junked it up and heated it up too much, then healthcare, war, abortion, the budget, immigration, stem cell research, etc. will not matter at all. We won't even have to worry about it. We'll be too busy trying to figure out how to eat.

We all have to work together on this and it seems that there are a whole lot of people who think that it is political or just inconvenient and don't really care. If you have children and want them to be happy in the future, it's time to start caring. Yes it's really difficult and I am also guilty of being a glutonous american consumer. I'm working to change this.

There's a lot we all need to do and I think it's time to stop turning a blind eye to the problem. Sorry if I'm a bleeding hearted liberal gaywad, but I'm probably not wrong on this one.[/dirtyhippyrant]
 
eileenbunny said:
[dirtyhippyrant]Pollution is such a complex issue. All of those places on that map don't mention anything about CO2 emissions which is probably the biggest issue we are facing, and this is where the US fails in the environmental friendly realm. And sure, the US doesn't burn a whole lot of coal, but we export tons of it so other countries can burn it and take the blame for the problems it causes. We aren't the worst, but it doesn't mean we shouldn't care. If we, as a world, don't stop emitting so much CO2 into the atmosphere, global warming will become a very real and scary problem. I believe we have about 50 years to address this issue. Sure, dumping stuff into our water supply is horrid, and we all need to stop doing that, but if our ice caps continue to melt none of it will really matter.

I take issue with Zengirl saying that hearing about the environment is a lot of political BS that we hear around election time to take our minds off of the real issues. This IS the biggest issue we face. If we don't have a planet to live off of anymore because we've all junked it up and heated it up too much, then healthcare, war, abortion, the budget, immigration, stem cell research, etc. will not matter at all. We won't even have to worry about it. We'll be too busy trying to figure out how to eat.

We all have to work together on this and it seems that there are a whole lot of people who think that it is political or just inconvenient and don't really care. If you have children and want them to be happy in the future, it's time to start caring. Yes it's really difficult and I am also guilty of being a glutonous american consumer. I'm working to change this.

There's a lot we all need to do and I think it's time to stop turning a blind eye to the problem. Sorry if I'm a bleeding hearted liberal gaywad, but I'm probably not wrong on this one.[/dirtyhippyrant]
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It is politicized and we do hear a lot more about it during election time. The problem, however, isn't that we hear more about it before elections - it's that we don't hear nearly enough about it until it's brought into the political arena. One of the causes is that people like Al Gore are the voices of the issue. Despite the importance of the issue many instead find it too easy to bash the messenger and ignore the message.

The bottom line is that we do only have one planet and we do need to take care of it. We just have to be careful not to ruin our civilization in the process. There's no point in having a clean planet if our economy crumbles like a month old pound cake because the oil companies have lost too much money to supply us with fuel. There's no point in having a clean planet if we lose everything else in the process.
 
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