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Remember the time the United States was doing terrible damage to the environment (noon in Pittsburgh, strip mining, coal ash in the rivers), then we became a wo

Remember the time the United States was doing terrible damage to the environment (noon in Pittsburgh, strip mining, coal ash in the rivers), then we became a world superpower, then the EPA was given teeth to clean up the environment? History suggests your friend might have a point. Might. There are likely good counter-examples to consider.

drzaiusapelord 10y ago
Civil rights and pollution have almost nothing in common, especially when we're talking about an oppressive autocracy that has huge incentives to keep civil rights down. Worse, the EPA exists because of grassroots democratic action. What grassroots right do these Chinese people have? Much, much less than Americans in the 60s.
- fixermark 10y ago
  While I agree civil rights and pollution have almost nothing in common, civil rights and consumer rights are also pretty unrelated. The larger umbrella category encompassing them is "Pro-individual vs. pro-collective policy," which I assumed we were discoursing under because you brought up civil rights in the context of consumer rights. Under that umbrella, one can certainly discuss tradeoffs a society makes between "Better for the individual" vs. "better for the collective" to move to somewhere the society wants to be economically. Where did "civil rights" stand when the US was employing children to operate textile machines or had no 40-hour work-week protections?
DannyBee 10y ago
This is the usual argument. Here's the problem: There's always another thing. always. In the history of the world, we go from thing to thing to thing, always teetering on the edge. So if you always say "hey, just doin it for this crisis, we'll go back to normal later", you'll be doing it forever. EIther we make it without that, or truthfully, we aren't goign to make it as a species over time.
- ethbro 10y ago
  How would we have industrialized without massive amounts of coal and oil-fueled power? Sometimes there are stages you must go through in order to reach the other side (e.g. an excess energy future where we can afford to research and pump out solar panels).

drzaiusapelord 10y ago

Civil rights and pollution have almost nothing in common, especially when we're talking about an oppressive autocracy that has huge incentives to keep civil rights down. Worse, the EPA exists because of grassroots democratic action. What grassroots right do these Chinese people have? Much, much less than Americans in the 60s.

fixermark 10y ago
While I agree civil rights and pollution have almost nothing in common, civil rights and consumer rights are also pretty unrelated. The larger umbrella category encompassing them is "Pro-individual vs. pro-collective policy," which I assumed we were discoursing under because you brought up civil rights in the context of consumer rights. Under that umbrella, one can certainly discuss tradeoffs a society makes between "Better for the individual" vs. "better for the collective" to move to somewhere the society wants to be economically. Where did "civil rights" stand when the US was employing children to operate textile machines or had no 40-hour work-week protections?

DannyBee 10y ago

This is the usual argument. Here's the problem: There's always another thing. always. In the history of the world, we go from thing to thing to thing, always teetering on the edge. So if you always say "hey, just doin it for this crisis, we'll go back to normal later", you'll be doing it forever. EIther we make it without that, or truthfully, we aren't goign to make it as a species over time.

ethbro 10y ago
How would we have industrialized without massive amounts of coal and oil-fueled power? Sometimes there are stages you must go through in order to reach the other side (e.g. an excess energy future where we can afford to research and pump out solar panels).