Denial always makes difficult situations easier to live with, right? We deny reality every time we look at our national debt and then raise the ceiling again.

Yes, but they are making air filters out of shredded US currency

It is no wonder that Japan has to suffer from constant attacks from Mothera and the Smog Monster. China, clean up your act, it is getting very old to the entire world population.

The US is ALWAYS putting their nose in places it does not belong..........IF they US government would only put their nose into the US, WE would have a better place to live.

The people of the US.....tell CHINA to quite poisoning US citizen's, their people, the worlds people, and the planet earth with lead, melamine, and every other toxin known to man..........really don't know how they were able to maintain their culture for thousands of years , talk about "Sheeples".....

D.Man

Spoken like a proper troll. No one in the US wants pollution like you see in China, including the GOP. They just don't want it over-regulated by environmentalists with unchallenged authority on the subject.

It seems like in the last 6 months, the US has been seperating itself from China & Russia more and more.......Russia is filling the void in Syria, etc.... and China is making deals for resources in 2014 when the USA fully pulls out of Afghanistan, but China will not provide any security for the region......Russia and China both need to be have their veto powers revoked in the UN and NATO...

Noryc-2802231 - I agree w/your comment. However, since when has the GOP backed the development of greener technologies in this country. They only thing I see, is the GOP giving tax subsidies to the already record profit making oil corporations.

As for China. You told us a few months ago to be 'fiscally responsible'. Which we should be of course. However, don't throw stones in a glass house and tell us not to report the pollution in your own country. Fix your own problem before more of your innocent civilians pay the price.

So stop reporting the air quality of the city and start reporting the air quality over the embassy, which is US territory.

D.Man- Welcome to unchecked industrial progress! The GOP gets a stiffy when they see how lax the environmental laws are over there. If the exrtemists within their party had their way, we'd look like this in 10 years or so with an abolished EPA and no emission regulations.

Pure baloney! Contrary to what the leftist propagandists tell you, NO ONE is trying to deregulate the entirety of environmental regulations. What would be good for business is to keep the regulations we had by around the 1990's and STOP trying to continuously force new ones down our throats!

Small businesses are being choked to death by government mandates that require in some cases FULL TIME employees just to keep up with compliance and government paperwork.

It would take 5, 10 seconds to clean up.

If they had to clean up their act, and enviroment.....Everything would be made in America again......they couldn't afford to produce non toxic products anymore........... :)

Hah. These reds may be able to give their own people orders, but they really think they can tell US what to do? No thanks. Ill keep touting their pollution.

the GOP wants to take over and become unchallenged by under-regulating the pollution index.. NOW I get it.

Salt t pepper.... you don't get it at all, perhaps you shoul read Noryc's post again, this time a little slower, lol!

This is the result of selling you're soul to all things money without commonsense approaches to balance. But that aside tell me one thing the Asians have done balanced, they have basically overfished their resources locally so they have to travel and target species like Whales. They more or less wiped out Rhinos so some lame ass could get a hard on they kill something like 500,000 sharks a week for aphrodisiacs and soup. Its sad, Capitalism without Morality and commonsense is just an oligarchy. I don't accuse the GOP of supporting this like some, but the Chamber of Commerce has made it clear to keep up with China we must deregulate on a massive scale. No thanks, I like our Country the way it is.

IMO this should outrage our Religious Community, I can't imagine God intended for Mother Earth to treated with such contempt.

Rednexican: These are "non-value added jobs". Instead of creating products & services people want, they just fill out forms all day. The same is true of OSHA. No one truly wants an unsafe work environment, yet OSHA is often more concerned with paperwork compliance than real safety. "Parkinson's Law & the Peter Principle" often take over in government agencies (I worked for the government for 17 years, so I have a good idea of what happens when bureaucracy makes any progress glacial in pace).

Note: when I said positions are non-value added, I mean this from a systems engineering perspective. If we "value" clean air and safety, then there is some value to those activities. But thinking more regulation = jobs is short sighted. I'd rather see more development in green energy than a bunch of inspectors running around.

Personally I'm for less regulations that are properly enforced. Sometimes we confuse the path we take with the end goal. Often democrats & republicans want the same thing, they just believe in different approaches to achieve it (at least when it come to economics, morals are sometimes a different story...)

DMan is essentially correct about the current generation of Republicans wanting to eliminate the EPA. (I think it was Nixon ironically who signed the EPA into existence)

Remember how Michelle Bachman and Ron Paul want to eliminate the EPA? Remember the Republican primary debates like November 2011, when Perry couldn't remember all the departments or agencies he wanted to eliminate, and Romney suggested the EPA (tho Perry later said it was Energy Dept)

I'm outraged at the truth! Stop telling people the truth, it is against the law damn it!

Apparently the Chinese think they can control ALL of the news worldwide. Their efforts to stymy their own population's thirst for the truth is a good example of the Communist government's information control efforts.

The bottom line is that the Commies just don't want the rest of the world to know what a crap hole China really is. Sorry Beijing, we found out a LONG time ago........

If the government says the air is fine it must be, if the government says the economy is fine it must be.......

Sorry Joe the heating man - I really like it when the US Government puts their noses into other countries business. It would actually be great if they spent 100% of their time doing that. Then they'd stop making up more stupid laws and increasing spending on a daily basis to pay for other things. Just tell them to leave our money out of it.

Why was comment 1.5 by D.Man collapsed??? It wasn't abusive... Certainly not abusive as some things I've seen around here that doesn't get collapsed. GOP agenda collapsed that comment. Not anything he said in it. The GOP have regularly stated that the EPA needs to be reigned in if not abolished. What gives??

China's newest export: "acid rain"

Guaranteed to be "as safe" as the rest of the crap they push through our borders - and this one comes with a lifetime warranty

China: "destroying the future one planet at a time"

I've been to mainland China a number of times. Mostly it is smoggy with the occasional clear day. I flew in Hong Kong once and from my hotel window you'd swear you were in the clouds.

We all would like production to return to the U.S. but at the same time, we like the low prices on the stuff we buy. If all production returned, prices would surely rise. Is that really what we want? Think about it for a while.

Jobs are a great thing to have, but would people still consume the way they did if prices for durable goods were double what they are? Where would the balance fall between supply and demand? Would we really put that many more people to work making stuff that we already have too much of?

Dogma I would like to know the same thing. It was politically charged but so are half the comments in here.

Im thinking why are the rethugs bashing the regulation of clean air? Why on earth would anybody want to pollute the air we breathe? Oh I know..because the Gop'ers(republicans)simply don't care about their fellow man. ITs all about the money. FACT ....I think its time we(somebody'organization) starts making some of these very wealthy people who cause so much harm to the people physically and financially disappear. Its actually just the beginning....we see it now already. Egypt,Libya, Syria. These types of governments who continue to divide the people will be removed by the people. I talked to my neighbor(conservative)was just saying that a revolution is the only way to solve our problems. I know it sounds like the fanatics you read about on these threads. But you must be careful for the truth in in your dreams.

I thought LA was bad. LA looks like a health spa compared to Beijing.

All of you tards comparing China to Republicans.

China is communist, which is way closer to what the democrats want than what the republicans want.

Ya don't have to be retarded to be a democrat, but it sure helps.

How about if & when, China ever recalls its loans to the USA.....we send them a Laser Printer made in China, a pallet of paper made in China, and some lead based printer ink made in China......and tell them to print the money we owe them........... :)

But, but we in California have to breathe their gunk. California passed strict air quality standards, but now we are forced to breathe their filthy air!

Folks, none of us live in a glass bubble.

Here in Portland, OR we get Chinese Death Clouds floating over the Pacific from China.

I personally don't care how much China pollutes itself, but when it affects me and my property, that's when there's trouble.

I KNOW, China, RIGHT? Doesn't it SUCK when someone actually shows the world what you are doing?

Next up: Finding China's actual crime rate, as opposed to the ones it decides to report.

As in the past, in many ways, the present Chinese government are a pack of fools.

@Dogma Bites

I saw nothing wrong with D.Man's comment either. I've noticed that some posters choose to collapse comments that express opinions differing from their own, or launch a personal attack against the poster even though the Code forbids such attacks. Why aren't those comments collapsed? Perhaps not everyone understands this is a forum to discuss news stories and express opinions without personally attacking others?

You don't have to like what I say, but I have a right to think it, feel it, and say it. Collapsing comments simply because you don't share the same opinion is...well...you fill it in--then we can agree. Happy now?

I see the collapse trolls hate it when someone tells the truth about the GOP and the EPA. Yes the GOP wants to reduce or eliminate the EPA. Live with it and stop being children.

Google "gop want epa eliminated" and read the results.

Commenting on what some people have been saying about China selling its soul for money.

I think this is a two part problem. The first was the communist revolution when Mao pretty much destroyed religion. While I'm not religious, I believe the bible has its place as a tool for teaching morality. Most people in western cultures are at least somewhat introduced to these stories at a young age. Plus school curriculums go through many books dealing with morals (Of Mice and Men, To Kill a Mockingbird, etc). The current, 30-40+ generation had none of that (Tiananmen Square showed what happened to people who went outside of the box). The newer generations are a bit better now with access to the internet but they are still the product of their environment.

The second problem is the rapid developement of every industry in China. China in the 90's was the equivalent of 1920's (think Great Depression and third world country). Fast forward 20 years and they're a superpower on par with the other major players in the world. What took the US 80 years of trail, error, and a multitude of departments and regulations to do, China has only had 20. They simply did not enough time to develop and inforce what we preceive as simple regulations (think early 20th century US meat packing plants).

Those two problems combined has produced a country full of smart people, but with very little morals and a penchant for bending, or straight up breaking, the rules. Before people scratch their head and ask , "what the I came here from China when I was 7 after Tiananmen Square and go back regularly to visit extended family.

Exactly Tiggle. People complain because many manufacturing jobs have been shipped overseas. They want them brought back here. What do you think is going to happen if/when they come back? Higher prices, that's what.

America wanted good stuff cheap, and to achieve that the corporations moved overseas. With low wages and few regulations they were able to give us what we wanted.

You want American jobs, you have to pay for American labor. You want American jobs, stop buying "Made in China" products. That's the only way it's going to happen.

The BEST comment that this story could possibly elicit - indeed, one of the best comments, ever, on "Newsvine" is "Ms. Pheanique's" at Msg. #1.2. Brilliant. My hat is off to you.

And anyone who thinks our national debt (and indebtedness to China) "doesn't matter" needs to take heed of the fact that China holds enough of our currency that they feel quite able to dictate to us what our own embassy is allowed to monitor and report. Neither Stalin's secret police nor Hitler's Gestapo had the power to dictate to us that way, but, then, neither of those monsters owned us. China does.

China is just waiting for us to mess up, before they pounce.

People who agreed to a free trade with China should be locked up in an insane asylum. Be a real job creator: BUY AMERICAN!

D Man's post was entirely accurate and should not have been collapsed. I would add to it the GOP are bashing unions at breakneck speed so the serfs (us) can not only breathe crap like the Chinese people, but work twelve hour days six days a week and live on a bowl of rice and a dollar or two a day as well.

If you can’t connect the dots of China to the GOP Spencer399802, then you are as you say “retarded”. Indeed, Democrats are closer to socialism which is closer to communism. That would be 2 degrees of separation. China supports deregulation to achieve a competitive advantage, a very capitalist ideal. The GOP supports environmental deregulation to achieve a competitive advantage, holding true to their capitalist roots. If you were keeping track, that is 0 degree of separation. At least in terms of environmental regulation China is much more similar to the GOP than D’s. China may be communist, but in many ways they are more capitalist than American will ever be.

China is just waiting for us to mess up, before they pounce.

Biting the hand that feeds & fed you for so wong............can and will lead to very painful consequences......we may be a country divide amongst ourselves.....but we are a unified country against others.....at least we used to be that way...

Collapsing should not be allowed...PERIOD!!

Just because the EPA goes overboard and ruins small towns and businesses, doesn't mean they should be reigned in and held accountable... right democrats?

Amen. And when did we allow a foreign nation to stop the flow of information to its citizens. We need to disentangle NOW from China. In all ways. If we have to do without new televisions for a year, so be it. Let us re-industrialize, rebuild our manufacturing industry, and tell China to go stuff it. You get our economy humming along as a world class manufacturing & industrial country, and give up our status as the #1 creator of dodgy and phony financial profits from Wall Street (what exactly do they "make" that is more than smoke and mirrors?), and we will all profit and do well. As it is now, we are becoming an increasingly "medieval" society of the princes and dukes and oodles of serfs living misery.

You think my comment is way over the line into fantasy? Study some history and see exactly what is happening to us.

your a smart little old lady...our greedy corporation....have bought our politicians off for decades ...we are as a country losing everything that made this country the world leader...and turned us into a world beater...

You make some good points. Many US businesses have become too greedy. If I was a CEO I would like to think I'd do things differently then most.

However, be careful of what you ask for and who you point fingers toward. I went to college in the 80's. And I remember many of my "liberal" economics professors saying the it was unfair that the US had such a high standard of living and we should live more like the rest of the world. Some writers such as Jeremy Riftkin even advocated going back to using animal power. Mother Earth News also mentioned we should have "extremely modest incomes" (I used the exact phrase they used in 1989).

If we are indeed going downhill (and I think we are), then blaming republicans makes you only half correct.

Steven X, it sounds to me that what your "liberal" economics professors and the writers that you mention were saying, would have the same end results as the policies that the Republicans are proposing. Less for the average guy and more for the elite.

Please tell me what the difference is to the working man if there is an elite of corporate Americans or an elite composed of government officials....bottom line is the exact same-those who work are limited in what they may achieve and attain. The difference to me is that in a world of corporations, one can shop around, but with everything seated in government, you are stuck with it and have no alternative available. I prefer to choose my poison and reserve the right to change my mind.

Sue, that is most logical and convincing comment we have read of late ... thank you!

Remember, to the average worker, there was really no difference at at all between a Stalin or a Hitler ... work without end for nothing ... never enough to eat ... say the wrong thing you and your family die ...

We find no real difference between the extremes in our own country ... extreme is bad ... moderation is good :)

The irony is the Embassy is just reporting the levels to Americans working or visiting China. It is really no different than other travel advisory's when crime is rampant.

Maybe China can get even by reporting Washington DC crime statistics.

The problem with China's lax standards is that it helps make them competitive and takes US jobs when they don't spend the amount of $ we do on pollution control.

And does the government of China really think that the pollution they create won't wind up elsewhere? They know; they just don't care.

And although I don't have any decendants to worry about, I'd like to think we're not going to choke ourselves out of existance for the profit of the relative few. It's a perfectly good planet, why ruin it?

IMO we need a pollution tariff on all Chinese imports to America to cover our expected future costs of cleaning up the mess they are making; we also need to insure this money is held for this purpose and doesn't just go to lining the pockets of lobbyists like the Social Security surplus did (anyone seen that SS surplus lately, we seem to have misplaced the cash but have these lovely IOUs from the Federal Gvt instead, oh well, just print some more cash, no one will notice a few trillion dollars missing and we can create jobs running the printing press).

Not surprisingly this pollution tariff will somewhat level the playing field on Mfg. cost bringing jobs back to America.

exactly!

Robert, your comment sounds remarkably close to the reactions of some people in this country when folks try to point out the potential environmental impacts of lax (or no) business or energy production regulations. People who try to point out possible spoiling of ground water, destruction of habitat, endangerment of human health, or degradation of air quality are accused of being "job killers" and labeled with the pejorative "environmentalist".

The Chinese government is behaving no differently than certain politicians and businesses in this country.

What do you want to bet you will see us bow to the will of our Chinese "friends" and pretty soon, quietly - hopefully unobserved and without comment by the media - the embassy's pollution reports will disappear?

The Chinese are more concerned about saving face and pretending the problem doesn't exist than solving it. The fact they are slowly killing their own people - not to mention those foolish enough to visit the hell hole of despotic totalitarianism known as China - is irrelevant to them. Is there anyone in the world so stupid as to not realize that the Chinese, in addition to having no regard for human life or rights, have even less regard for the truth?

Puts you in mind of this passage from Alice in Wonderland:

"But I don't want to go among mad people," Alice remarked.
"Oh, you can't help that," said the Cat: "we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad."
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldn't have come here."
(Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Chapter 6)

If I were Obama I would stay out of China - after all they imprison Nobel prize winners there with impunity.

@ Needaplan

Well said.

• The difference Needleplan and D.Man

is that in this country we don't throw someone who criticizes our system in jail for 12 years - as did the Chinese recently to someone whose only crime was posting several pieces on a blog saying that the Chinese communist system needs changing because it fosters corruption.

There comes a point where trying to be politically correct and "understanding" of others viewpoint becomes stupidity personified and reveals a deep seated animosity toward America that is both onerous and transparent.

Everybody has good points and we're all mostly in agreement that saying it's not a problem doesn't make it any less a problem. It reminds me of the old story of the "Kings new cloths". But the thing that concerns me is no place on this globe is an island (figuratively speaking). What happens over there will be everywhere in time. We have the natural gas industry over here in the US that would easily pollute ever last vestige of nature to pull out the last cubic foot of gas they could get – then what? China is that mind set on steroids. Madagascar was once a rain forest and rather than fish in the ocean we have 5 areas the size of Australia as floating trash dumps. I'd like to believe we (humans) were better than this but it’s getting harder every day. I’m not a tree hugger but some common sense and moderation would go a long way in this world.

Ain't it the truth Gary?!

Sometimes it does amaze that the human race - being as apparently hell bent on self-destruction as we are often wont to be - has managed to survive as long as we have.

However, if we reflect back even 50 years and compare where the overall mindset of the world as well as America was then - it would be hard to deny that we are at least moving in the right direction.

Unfortunately, there still remain - and probably always will - bastions of individuals whose sole goal in life is to please themselves (being selfish little children in grown up bodies still at heart) regardless of whom or what they injure or defile in the process.

As time goes by I predict things will improve - albeit at a slow pace. You can't legislate morality nor impose higher consciousness and caring on individuals essentially bereft of either quality; just do our personal level best making the worlds we live in and create as good as good can be and by our actions, toward all we meet and those we are fortunate to have love us, act in accordance with what we honestly believe is the best course of action in a given circumstance, and - if you believe in God, as I do, also try to tailor our actions to His/Her/Its will.

In the end the only thing we truly have command and control over are our individual thoughts, deeds and action, which I don't know about you, but trying to make sure all of that is kept in balance is quite enough to keep moi busy! lol

if we all tried to just live within our means...we wouldn't need all that crap made in China...we wouldn't pollute every last river, ocean, and stream, not to mention our air. We all think we are entitled to a 2 car garage...

we've been buying the crap made in China forever...we help contribute to this pollution because the factories creating the crap that we buy are making that pollution....

Please define living within your means......Does that mean because you have a big screen TV, Blue ray DVD player etc that there are enough in America and nobody else needs them? Just because you have a smart phone, there are enough in America and nobody else needs them. It seems to me that people who are bent on convincing us that we are somehow greedy, already have all the things that people aspire to have, so everything is good.

yeah...i should have said if we tried to live a simple type of life style..we wouldn't need all the crap...

Stoops2: They don't need to lock someone up here for 12 years like they do in China for being critical of authority because they understand most people will be drowned out by the corporate-owned mass media that kow-tows to authority, and also know that most Americans have become sheeple and put up with anything, being groped in airports, etc.

+1.

Made in China but owned by American plutocrats, avoiding Labor & Environmental regulations for MO'MONEY!

Rubber Dog-Shi'te now on sale in isle 4 at your local Wallmart!

Lord Foxdrake 360,

The very instrument you are using to speak your mind here is probably one of the causes of this pollution and you continue to buy them. When is enough, enough? Most of you are not even waiting for your products to malfunction before you replace them as if you are addicted to the newest technology. You line up like rats trying to squeeze through the smallest hole in the wall just to get them. How many more men like Steve Jobs is it going to take before all of our air is so polluted we can no longer see the sun or breathe the air. Here's the part I like, the more polluted it gets the shorter mans life span will be. I hope someday this world reverts back to
being the vacant rock it once was. So at least then it maybe able to heal and start new life forms, ones without knowledge of how to change it.

Hey,

Maybe Dog-Shi'te is a delicacy for those officials in China. Seeing as their standard of pollution is much different than the rest of the world, I think that is more likely the case here and they enjoy it.

Confussed,

The very instrument you are using to speak your mind here is probably one of the causes of this pollution and you continue to buy them. When is enough, enough?

Apparently when everyone owns the same model computer as yours.

Wrong country, slug. You wound up in N Korea.

Right country, sherm. You probably forgot that North Korea's only BFF is China.

I'm hoping for the zombie-apocalypse!

Steve-1266803

With 7 Billion humans on the Earth this planet is now far beyond its ability to adequately support everyone with enough clean air, water, energy, shelter, food, medicine and general quality of life. The entire scenario is precariously close to becoming unsustainable, and odds are very good that it will probably correct itself 'naturally' with a worldwide pandemic or other horrific event within this century.

I just love it when people claim to know what the earth can and cannot handle by either listening to others (so called scientists) or making this sh*t up themselves. The earth, after billions of years, still has a hot molten core showing no signs of cooling off anytime soon. As much as the humans on this planet would like to think they know what Earth is all about, they don't and they probably never will. There are many places on Earth which are very sparsely inhabited by people. Just because most enjoy living clustered together in small areas doesn't mean there is not more room available. And no one ever said we have to have electricity and running water to survive. People survived for many centuries on candles, wood, well water, and horses for transportation.

Maybe Obama's bankrupt green energy company stimulus failures can help them out?

Harley Chic

Maybe you can got China and show them personally how to have a greener environment. After all, you are the best at everything :)

Other realist, I just love it when someone buries their head in the sand and ignores the obvious. There are too many people which is the real problem the world is facing today. Water is being polluted on a global scale, from human waste, and the waste of a modern society. Millions of people are starving, resources are being depleted, worldwide unemployment rises. It's a scientific fact, that every ecosystem can only sustain so many living organisms. This fact plays out everyday in the natural world where animals overpopulate until the food supply can't sustain the population or predators kill them off and overpopulate themselves to the point of dying off to a sustainable level. It can be successfully argued that every major problem we face today, can be traced back to the size of the world population. Steve got it right! He didn't say there wasn't enough space for more people, he said the planet can't sustain more people. Yes, people survived for many centuries on the minimal resources you describe, but how big was the population then? Even with the past reduced populations, plaques and famine still reduced those populations to levels sustainable to available resources.

As an historical note, people were saying the same thing over a hundred years ago when the total population was about 1.5 billion, "we're overcrowded, the water is polluted, there isn't enough food, etc.". Then Haber invented industrial nitrogen fixation, sewage treatment systems were created, electrification and active water systems allowed us to spread out. I'm not saying that technology will save us this time and I'm not saying it's inherently good. I'd just like to say that this "the sky is falling" argument has been around a long time and so far (crosses fingers) it hasn't come true. Maybe we are at a population tipping point but neither you or I can know that until after the fact.

I don't have the stats on most of your prophecies of doom, Realist, but I know for a fact that famines have become LESS common as compared to a hundred, or even fifty years ago. Are "millions" starving? Maybe; North Korea has a fair number of people. But the trend is definitely moving in the direction opposite you suggest: http://www.factcheck.org/2011/04/rev-graham-and-the-signs-of-armageddon/

But anyway, your concerns are a laundry list of generalizations. Pollution fluctuates all the time depending on region, regional activity, regulation and technological advances. Every time we think we're approaching the end of the resource well we find a new way to get or find more. And humans are infamous for changing our ecosystem to support far, far more of us than it would be able to naturally. Environmental science - which I'm assuming is what you're basing your argument on - is an exceptionally poor indicator of human behavior and limitations.

Realist 1226632,

Thank you for your elucidation. It is really hard to believe that there are people who do not want to accept the fact that the world's human population has outstripped most of the non renewable resouces of the planet, and seriously damaged many others. It is simply not sustainable at the present and rising rate of consumption and depletion. Thomas Malthus spoke of this almost two hundred years ago regarding the ability of humanity simply to feed itself against a rapidly rising population. Dr Paul Erlich's 'Population Bomb' is one of the seminal works to address the out of control population on the planet. This year alone the Earth will gain another 92 million people, as a net gain over deaths. That is like putting another country with a population twice that of Australia on the surface of the planet, in just one year. The entire human population is a ticking time bomb heading for a cliff. Thank you for your post.

Peace to all

we really need to face that fact...our children's futures are going to be sh_t....

just me from az,

You basically hit the nail on the head in one sentence. I tell this to my daughter all of the time. The bloom is off the rose, and the general quality of life for all of humanity is beginning a steady decline.

Peace

Cheering to live in your world.......Nobody seems to consider that any child born has the potential to be the great innovator, the savior of society, a Nobel or pulitzer laureate.....a healer, of either body or mind, a great facilitator-a force for understanding and cooperation....but I guess the world certainly doesn't need any more of that.

thanks Steve...yeah makes me sad and scared for my kids....as a kid didn't have to worry about the air i breath...

Sue...

It's not my world ... It's the world that all of us live in and have inherited from those that have gone before us. We have truly reached a tipping point with our impact upon the biosphere and the physical world that we are so completely dependent upon. The world's resources are finite and independent of any of the good works of Nobel laureates and the like. Thanks for your post.

Peace

Most people are ignorant of constraints. The fact that it was understimated a few times how many rats you could squeeze into the cage doesn't mean that the limit won't eventually be reached.

Some people talk about peak oil, or about peak fresh water. I think the final arbiter will be peak phosphate. We started off mass agriculture by using guano (bird crap) which in some places was piled hundreds of feet deep. Wars in South America were fought over this bird crap because it is rich in phosphate. (It is the reason why Bolivia is now landlocked--they lost their guano deposits along the coast in a war) Then they proceeded to phosphate mines like in SE US and Morocco.

When we reach the point (somewhere between 30 and 300 years, the estimates range greatly) where phosphate production peaks, then it will decline yearly after that. I told a friend of mine and he suggested a substitute for phosphate. Its a main ingredient in fertilizer that plants NEED to grow! I told him it was like trying to find a substitute for WATER.

Peak phosphate happens, and the green revolution is over and the human population will crash like a population of yeast on a petrie dish when they run out of sugar.

Oh so you'd rather loosen up those pesky regulations and do away with the EPA so our corporations can pollute as much as they want in the pursuit of maximized profits?

You want your family breathing the air in those pictures of Beijing is that it?

'jay', you talk a good, loyal partisan game. But you are entirely misinformed (or offering deliberate misinformation). you are entitled to your own opinions, but you aren't entitled to your own facts.

Americans represent only 5 percent of the world's population but contribute 45 percent of the world's emission of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas pollutant that contributes to global warming.

Americans own 30 percent of the world's vehicles, drive farther each year than the international average and burn more fuel per mile.

China, India and Russia ratified the Kyoto Protocols. President George W. Bush however refused to ratify and effectively withdrew the United States from the Kyoto Protocols.

These are the facts, 'jay.' Your rhetoric is uninformed by truth.

Actually, Robert, China and India were exempt from the Kyoto Protocols because they were considered "developing nations". And China is now the world's leading air polluter.

Actually the US Senate failed to fall for and pass these so called Protocols, something like 95-0. Time to turn your truth checker back on Robert.

China has recently surpassed the US in number of automobiles AND carbon dioxide emissions, AND there are no CAFE laws or emissions requirements there, or in India, or any other part of Asia, for that matter.

Robert in Oregon
your data about Americans producing 45 % of the the worlds greenhouse emissions is way to high even if you include all of North and South America .

gasesgases Wikipedia

.

Leon...take a deep breath...which country?

i like the country...green acres is the place to be...farm living is the life for me...

What you really have to understand is their position in history, they are on the upswing of a Manufacturing Expansion / Industrial Revolution...compare the polution level of our two equivalent time periods...I can still remember driving into LA and many other US Cities and needing to use headlights, and Lake Erie during this period...

When China catches up with their Economic Explosion, and having a Central Authority to force compliance...they are already decades ahead of America in green energy (including Nuclear Power)...

Sometimes you make a mess when baking a cake...when they reach their plateau they will clean up the air and water

Kool- aid flavor please!!...its the USA true and tested manufacturing tech being given to China freely, minus the pollution control part!..... American Corporations and Chinese Communist Govt. are purposely polluting....mo money!!!!

What you really have to understand is their position in history, they are on the upswing of a Manufacturing Expansion / Industrial Revolution...compare the polution level of our two equivalent time periods...I can still remember driving into LA and many other US Cities and needing to use headlights, and Lake Erie during this period...

When China catches up with their Economic Explosion, and having a Central Authority to force compliance...they are already decades ahead of America in green energy (including Nuclear Power).

Do you work on behalf of Chinese interests? Your statements are utter bunk.

The USA didn't have 1.3 billion people in the Nineteenth Century. We didn't have several decades of environmental impact studies and epidemiology was in its infancy. And we had no knowledge of the history of industrial development.

And the Chinese are "decades" ahead of us in "green" energy? Don't make me laugh. They are the world's largest consumers of coal and continue to build coal fired plants at a rapid clip. The air, water and soil around Chinese cities are polluted far beyond the maximum levels allowed by the EPA in this country.

Think before you post, shill.

The United States could be the world's largest producer and consumer of greener technologies. However, that would require the Republicants to get out of the bed with the Oil Corporations. We all know that's not going to happen.

@ Mr.PheaNiques-0000001 -- the fact you would suggest nuclear power is "clean" discredits your statement entirely. Nuclear power has spent rods -- what becomes of those rods? No state/country wants to take them -- I'd be critical of any that do for money because they will likely just bury them in their backyard and close shop after a couple years. Secondly, China has always been in a state of denial and incorporated lies -- I don't know why they simply don't block that part of the network from their people who retreive the US pollution index info -- isn't that typical of their normal protocols when they don't like what their people have access to? Lastly, China's focus has always been on being the biggest, most, etc. -- never about quality of anything. Hence, anything you buy from China is "disposable" or hazardous -- that's the standard. Therefore, with those standards, they will never become superior -- only rich -- temporarily -- before they all get sick and die. US mfr will be there long enough to exploit their resources and leave -- so will everyone else -- like they do in other 3rd world countries. And the wealthy expatriots will still seek to come to developed nations with human protections in place to raise their families where it is safe.

Not every nation on the planet are willing to excecute their Economy, so that their Environmentalists can bath in the glory of it...I just hope your are so high and mighty when the Chinese aid ships start arriving in LA, because there are minnows living in the streams that once watered your farm land...yes they have 1.3 Billion people and 96% of their Nation is cleaner today than the cleanest parts of America...Sure their Population and Manufacturing Centers are Nasty, but no more than ours were...and when their Government says clean it up, it will be cleaned up...

@AIT

You are smarter than that...

ItsAboutTime,

That's some nice magical thinking you've got going on there. See a psychiatrist, for your sake and the sake of your family.

Not every nation on the planet are willing to excecute their Economy, so that their Environmentalists can bath in the glory of it...I just hope your are so high and mighty when the Chinese aid ships start arriving in LA, because there are minnows living in the streams that once watered your farm land...yes they have 1.3 Billion people and 96% of their Nation is cleaner today than the cleanest parts of America...Sure their Population and Manufacturing Centers are Nasty, but no more than ours were...and when their Government says clean it up, it will be cleaned up...

Again, this is utter nonsense. Most of China's population lives in the eastern part of the country. Nearly every stream and river system in China is polluted from a combination of industrial waste, misbegotten hydroelectric projects and agricultural runoff. Over 200 million Chinese have no access to clean drinking water. Levels of air pollution in Beijing and China's other major cities far exceed those of Denver and Los Angeles, generally considered America's worst cities for smog.

And I don't think we'll need aid from the Chinese anytime soon. In real GDP terms their economy is not even half the size of the US economy, despite a population four times greater than ours. 60% of Chinese exports originate from foreign companies based in China. China has produced fewer Nobel Prize winners in Science and Mathematics than the University of California system in the last 60 years.

Tim W.-1074098

That's some nice magical thinking you've got going on there. See a psychiatrist, for your sake and the sake of your family.

Magical? Wait.. you mean the United States producing greener technologies is magical?

Windpower: http://exploringgreentechnology.com/wind-energy/top-wind-energy-countries/

Solar Power: http://1bog.org/blog/infographic-top-ten-countries-that-use-solar-energy/

Hydro Electric Power: http://www.greenworldinvestor.com/2011/03/29/list-of-worlds-largest-hydroelectricity-plants-and-countries-china-leading-in-building-hydroelectric-stations/

Oil Tax Subsidies: http://dpc.senate.gov/docs/lb-112-2-63.pdf (by the GOP). How does it feel knowing you pay more in taxes so oil corporations can keep more of their profts?

It appears, you need the professional help and probably a remedial course in basic education.

If Obama gets re-elected, we'll no longer need an EPA, since there will be no more manufacturing in the US.

You mean if ROMNEY gets elected there will no longer be a need for the EPA. Isn't it the GOP that awards TAX CREDITS to corporations that export their jobs to other countries.

Nice try....

tim

Why don't you turn off fox news for a while? Maybe you will learn something.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/2010-08-06-manufacturing04_CV_N.htm

http://www.economist.com/node/18682182

http://www.industryweek.com/articles/welcome_back_u-s-_manufacturing_16778.aspx

http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2011/06/29/return-of-american-manufacturing/

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/Economy/bringing-america-back-3m-jobs-us-manufacturing-makes/story?id=14685427#.T8485sWuV8E

http://operationsroom.wordpress.com/2011/10/17/and-the-trend-continues-manufacturing-moves-back-to-the-us/

L.A. In a blue state. Go figure.

The government of CA wants to further consolidate people into cities. Brilliant!

What are you talking about, Stege? Do you mean that they want to expand cities to include unincorporated areas of the counties? That is because the population in those unincorporated areas has grown over the years to the point that lots and lots of people are living in what are basically urban areas but with no municipal services. Have you heard about the fire companies that watch houses burn down because the owners haven't paid an annual service fee, and they are outside of the city boundaries? Those high population areas are already there whether you call it a "city" or not, so the state isn't actually "consolidating" anyone. Its not like they are relocating people.

Really? Water is used as a cooling element.

Wonder is right, cooling isn't all that they use the water for. Why do you think the rivers over there are so highly polluted? It used to be that way here too, before tougher regulation was enacted. What about the river in Ohio that caught on fire in the 1970's?

US companies do not have factorires in China. The Chinese own them and produce products for your enjoyment. Get it right or turn off your computer.

Yeah and chinese dont own anything in north america

Name one fruity.

Wally.....GM, Apple, MSFT, Corning Glass, Caterpillar..... too many to list....A good you tube video to watch called "global motors" about GM off shoring, I do not know the hyperlink but it is not hard to find using search bar at site

Consider the case of Brownsville, Texas which had at least 3 times the rate of birth defects than the rest of the country. The cause was an auto factory (GM) and other factories in Mexico which were sources of industrial pollution. Yes, one of the reasons that these companies worked just across the border was that they did not have to follow the environmental regulations in the US but in the end, it still affected US residents, led to a huge lawsuit that GM paid out money along with other corporations (http://www.chron.com/CDA/archives/archive.mpl/1995_1293107/gm-settles-border-suit-automaker-averts-trial-in-b.html), and the establishment of several monitoring organizations like the Texas Center for Birth Defects Research and Prevention ( http://www.nbdps.org/aboutus/states/TX.html ) in Texas.