Much of the environmental problem has its roots in the way current government maintains power. According to the historian Wu Si, the Chinese government may have much to worry about. The present day exploitation of workers in China, he says, is comparable to the horrors inflicted on the poor during the Qing dynasty two hundred years ago, and China's current structure of governance ensures that such abuses continue. It is these sort of abuses that lead to the Nationalist revolution in the first place.
So KT asks, quite rightly, where is the outrage? I'd assumed the big environmental organizations such as Green Peace would mention this growing problem, and call for changes. But a check of the Green Peace site, as well China Green Peace site, shows nothing but talk of Global warming. While I support taking action to mitigate global warming, ignoring the issue of overwhelming pollution in Asia is a tragic mistake. It is as if we only focused a patient's cancer, when they are rapidly bleeding to death. Triage is what is needed here.
11 comments:
Dude, have we edumacated each other?
Oh, the horrors of the Internet! If this ever fell into the wrong hands, the entire country might be able to hold intellectual conversations.
Then where would the media and politicians be?
See also: Lott, Trent, moronic statements during immigration debate.
And right back at ya!
I don't know if this is your bag, but a similar series on Republicans and out of control government spending would be a lot of fun for me.
I think that it is perhaps misguided to blame Green Peace for not taking on a particular cause. We all have to choose our own battles. If you start a rallying cry, perhaps others will listen. that's what Green Peace did.
I love the cartoon, by the way.
Kt,
I'm up for it, just don't quote folks like Bill'O or Ann. That will really set me off. I'd be more than happy to see you go after Hillary.
Dr. Zaius,
It's frustrating to see all the big environmental orgs completely focused on a single issue. I've seen this cycle before in the late 70's and early 80's. It represents a mainstreaming of the management. Success has made them cautious and adverse to risk. Global warming is an easy thing to be against. No risk there.
In the 1980's Green Peace, Friends of the Earth, EF!, Sea Shepard Society positioned themselves as alternatives to the mainstream Enviro groups like the Sierra Club. I have a lot of first hand experience with Green Peace in the 80's and early 90's. They used to focus strongly on pollution and local issues like environmental racism/classism. What is happening in China is the evolution of this issue. I don't see that focus any more. Its disappointing, but not unexpected.
It's kind of hard to bash the West and the US in particular if pollution is your cause. It's got to be global warming or nothing for them. The idiocy of the e-waste articles was not unintentional. You simply can't make the case for e-waste being a big deal when mounds of lead and cadmium slag are all over the countryside.
What will they do now that China has passed the US in greenhouse gas emissions? On a per dollar of value produced scale, China's producing about twice as much greenhouse gas per dollar as we are. I'm sure there will be a new angle to the whole thing.
As for the wild-spending Republicans, I would just quote them from their own campaign literature and then note how our per person debt has gone up.
I've got a post in my head of the US government as the medieval Catholic church. Paying more and more taxes for higher spending in, say, education, is the equivalent of buying indulgences. We want to live a free and fun lifestyle and forget about the reactionary concepts of marriage and the two parent family, so we pay off the government to absolve us of the results of our behavior.
Perhaps the Chinese government would put too much pressure on Green Peace, where they wouldn't even be able to function in China.
Quietly knuckling under to tyrants? That seems to defeat their avowed purpose.
I would guess that they are just choosing the battles that they have a better chance of winning.
Choosing battles, huh? What is that, sort of like beating up the little girl to get her lunch money instead of taking on the kung fu sifu?
Look, Greenpeace doesn't get anything done on their own. They raise awareness so that others get the job done for them. Pointing out the environmental horrors in China would cost them nothing if the environment was what they really cared about. South Africa's apartheid was ended, in part, through the pressures of individuals cutting financial ties to that country after various civil rights groups squawked about it. It's not like the NAACP marched around Soweto and got their asses kicked on a daily basis. They sat in their offices and wrote polemics and made phone calls.
Like Greenpeace couldn't do that here. Give me a break. China's pollution catastrophe doesn't make the US and the West look bad unless you tie it to something preposterous like e-waste. That's why that connection was made.
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