A SOLUTION FOR
CHINA'S POLLUTION
by Ronald R. Cooke
The Cultural Economist
Author, "Oil, Jihad & Destiny" and "Detensive Nation"
November 19, 2007

The World Energy Outlook, published by the International Energy Agency (IEA), predicts China�s consumption of fossil fuels and other energy resources will exceed America�s energy consumption by 2010. China is exporting its pollution to South Korea, Japan and even the United States in the form of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, and particulates which fall to the earth as a mixture of acid rain and smoggy soot. In 2005, China became the world�s leading source of sulfur dioxide, and in 2007 it became the world�s leading source of greenhouse gases.

Pollution has taken a deadly toll on the Chinese population. Cardiovascular and respiratory diseases; lung, bladder and stomach cancer; diarrhea; and other diseases caused over 470,000 deaths in 2006. (Some estimates are higher). In any case, the social toll is dreadful.

Beijing refuses to accept meaningful limits on air or water pollution because China has �the growth disease�. It has a growing population that needs more and more jobs, needs more an more things, and wants more and more wealth. China�s leaders know if they fail to deliver continuing economic and social opportunity, there will be incredible civil unrest.

Chinese political policy will thus continue to support expansionist economic and military activity until China�s EcoSystem collapses. Sometime in this century. The key is fossil fuel depletion. The Chinese people may be able to endure bad water and lousy air, but a nexus will be reached when they are confronted with energy resource depletion. The subsequent economic contraction and fuel destitution mean a degradation of the human condition. Followed by frustration. Anger. And rebellion.

Think of it as cultural Ecocide � suicide on a massive scale.

Chinese leaders have cleverly sidestepped their environmental responsibility by blaming consumers for China�s smoke, chemical, and industrial wastes. People who buy Chinese products, they reason, are exporting their own potential pollution to China. If these products were manufactured in the consumer�s home country, then OECD nations such as the United States, Australia, Germany, and so on would have to deal with the accompanying water and air contamination.

This has become a favorite mantra of the international liberal community. Naughty American consumers are responsible for Chinese industrial waste because we force them to make cheap goods for us. According to this thesis, when the products we purchase are made in China, rather than the United States, we are exporting our pollution to them.

Counterpoint

The concept that OECD nations are causing Chinese pollution when OECD consumers purchase Chinese products is a beguilingly simplistic idea. Although it shows a agonizing ignorance of how the world actually works, it invites an equally simplistic response:

If we really want to clean up the environment, the single most effective way to do this is to reduce uncontrollable Chinese pollution.

The easiest way to do this is to stop buying Chinese products.

And bring those jobs back home.

© 2007 Ronald R. Cooke
The Cultural Economist
Author, "Oil, Jihad & Destiny" and "Detensive Nation"
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