8 ms·

But it's not completely a labor play. Some of it is to skirt environmental protections. I'm not going to assume, but if you consider yourself both a globalist

by sbov 9y ago

But it's not completely a labor play. Some of it is to skirt environmental protections. I'm not going to assume, but if you consider yourself both a globalist and an environmentalist, how do you personally resolve those two beliefs? Anyone reading this who does, how do you resolve those beliefs? I can vote for all the environmental protections that I want, but what good does that do if it just forces companies to manufacture goods in places that have worse environmental protections than we do? I ask this as someone who believes in both movements, and don't have a great answer to resolve this internal conflict.

nebabyte 9y ago
Stop trying to handle env at the domestic level; measures only work at an international level (UN regulations or tariffs/sanctions or whatever). But that's for later society (ones with people with stable livelihoods) to figure out, not currently on the table. If you allow yourself to be paralyzed by one issue tapping into the next, you'll deadlock yourself. One issue at a time. The environment is the least of the american worker's immediate concerns anyways, you might as well save your breath in that context. (Yes, the environment is fucked, "sooner the better" etc - but that's idealism, not pragmatism, and guess which by which one the world actually turns. Bringing up noise just impairs yourself to communicating with the public.)
- news_to_me 9y ago
  > "sooner the better" etc - but that's idealism, not pragmatism I don't get this mentality at all. The more we put off curbing environmental change, the more expensive it becomes to fix. I feel like it's analogous to credit card debt – what you're saying is, don't worry about that mountain of credit debt, with it's 14% interest rate; pay the minimum and contribute to a mutual fund instead. But the credit interest overruns the fund interest, so you lose money. Similarly, I think the costs of climate change are going to overrun any other economic issue we decide to focus on.
nickik 9y ago
The answer is not very hard. People like to attribute everything to regulation but the reality is that most parts of living standards improve when incomes grows. As China becomes richer they will go threw the same stuff that Britain and later the US did. Maybe I don't fit the bill as 'envoirmentalist' but I like to live in a place and country with a clean envoirment. China will have to fix its own problems, and Im sure they eventually will.
- jackfraser 9y ago
  I hope that you're right, but it's definitely a big assumption on your part that China (and, of course, Chinese culture in general) will naturally head down the path of caring about the environment in the same sense that Western countries and cultures have started to. There are different levels of scale at play that make very different tactics work in Shanghai vs Vancouver; in the former there's enough difficulty ensuring that all the logistics work to ensure the populace is not starving that other considerations will necessarily have to go by the wayside. We also have to consider history and cultural forces, which have inertia, whenever we consider social change over time. The western world is becoming cleaner largely by virtue of each succeeding generation encouraging its children to take stewardship of the environment seriously. Even with this tendency, we still pollute terribly. I'm not convinced that there is much of an environmental shift in Mainland Chinese culture presently, at the very least in the city cores; and if there is, I suspect it will be generations before it's taken as seriously as it is here, which is still insufficient to actually stop bad things - and still undereducated as to what risks are reasonable vs. simply protesting whatever has the right virtue-signalling associations in the current year. When you say: > As China becomes richer ...there's an implicit assumption that "becoming richer" is just a natural, unavoidable, guaranteed outcome of the modern world. This is another assumption, and one I fear would be even harder to justify than Chinese culture becoming environmentally focused in a short enough time to matter. There's no guarantee that resource extraction at the current rate needed for wealth to outgrow population growth is a guarantee. This means there's no reason to assume that the per-capita average GDP or standard of living is going to rise forever, to the point where environmentalism (in the sense that it's often more expensive) is going to become not only feasible, but fashionable. Frugality may overcome the natural human desire to display wealthiness, if the threshold is too high for the average person. Lastly - While your solution may very well become the case in the long term, and again, I hope you're right because it's truly the best outcome, we still have to deal with environmental ramifications today, both of past decisions and of decision being made right now. It's probably better to stem the tide earlier rather than waiting for it to just naturally stem itself. This might mean "environmental protectionism", in the form of heavy tariffs against goods from countries with lower environmental standards and/or poor enforcement.
naravara 9y ago
Poor, starving, and desperate people don't have the luxury to worry about environmental protections. Their governments are going to work to improve their standards of living one way or another. If they do it with our cooperation, with our more efficient technology, and with our more efficient production practices they will be able to grow in a way that is less environmentally damaging than the Industrial revolution was. Enriching them and giving them access to education and giving women reproductive choice is also the only way we are going to foster the necessary reduction in birth-rates we will need to live on Earth sustainably.
- Retric 9y ago
  Pollution related annual deaths in China have gotten bad enough the government does not have much of a choice. Much like how London dealt with 'Killer Fogs' hundreds of years ago when not enough wind was clearing the air; China can't completely ignore the environment because the costs are simply getting to high. However, it's going to be a long time before they embrace western style pollution controls, because there is a big gap between killing people today and killing them in 40 years.
  - threeseed 9y ago
    China hasn't been ignoring the environment though and have had Western style pollution controls for years. Unfortunately it's a complicated issue: http://fortune.com/2017/01/10/china-red-alert-pollution-pm2-5/ http://fortune.com/2017/01/10/china-red-alert-pollution-pm2-... Anyone who thinks the environment is even remotely a reason for China's success in manufacturing is frankly ignorant.
    - Retric 9y ago
      The worst days are always going to be weather related everywhere, but clam days are really just magnifying the average impact not some weather pattern unique to china. Perhaps I could give them more credit for real progress, but the root cause is still a disconnect from what's on the books being a long way from what's enforced. Their smog problems largely relate to cars that would not pass US annual emissions standards from 20 years ago. Similarly coal is never 'clean' but it's not that expensive to dramatically reduce particulate emissions. And yes, cheap labor etc plays a huge role in some types of manufacturing. But, by subsidizing the inputs and lax enforcement of regulations you see dramatic shifts in many types of production well past their less harmful competitive advantages.
pg314 9y ago
In Apple's case it is mostly a labor play. They have a number of initiatives related to the environment [1]. They are trying to reduce their carbon footprint, and are close to get 100% of their power from renewable sources. They also announced their intention of a closed-loop supply chain (no new mining). Of course, they are not perfect. The Washington Post documented the horrifying exploitation of cobalt miners in Congo [2]. Some of that cobalt ended up in Apple batteries. Apple said it was addressing the issue [3]. The biggest contribution you yourself can make at this moment is to simply consume less. [1] https://images.apple.com/lae/environment/pdf/Apple_Environmental_Responsibility_Report_2017.pdf https://images.apple.com/lae/environment/pdf/Apple_Environme... [2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/business/batteries/congo-cobalt-mining-for-lithium-ion-battery/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/business/batteries/c... [3] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/03/03/apple-cracks-down-further-on-cobalt-supplier-in-congo-as-child-labor-persists/?utm_term=.6850852317fb https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/03/03...

by sbov 9y ago

nebabyte 9y ago

Stop trying to handle env at the domestic level; measures only work at an international level (UN regulations or tariffs/sanctions or whatever). But that's for later society (ones with people with stable livelihoods) to figure out, not currently on the table. If you allow yourself to be paralyzed by one issue tapping into the next, you'll deadlock yourself. One issue at a time. The environment is the least of the american worker's immediate concerns anyways, you might as well save your breath in that context. (Yes, the environment is fucked, "sooner the better" etc - but that's idealism, not pragmatism, and guess which by which one the world actually turns. Bringing up noise just impairs yourself to communicating with the public.)

news_to_me 9y ago
> "sooner the better" etc - but that's idealism, not pragmatism I don't get this mentality at all. The more we put off curbing environmental change, the more expensive it becomes to fix. I feel like it's analogous to credit card debt – what you're saying is, don't worry about that mountain of credit debt, with it's 14% interest rate; pay the minimum and contribute to a mutual fund instead. But the credit interest overruns the fund interest, so you lose money. Similarly, I think the costs of climate change are going to overrun any other economic issue we decide to focus on.

nickik 9y ago

The answer is not very hard. People like to attribute everything to regulation but the reality is that most parts of living standards improve when incomes grows. As China becomes richer they will go threw the same stuff that Britain and later the US did. Maybe I don't fit the bill as 'envoirmentalist' but I like to live in a place and country with a clean envoirment. China will have to fix its own problems, and Im sure they eventually will.

jackfraser 9y ago
I hope that you're right, but it's definitely a big assumption on your part that China (and, of course, Chinese culture in general) will naturally head down the path of caring about the environment in the same sense that Western countries and cultures have started to. There are different levels of scale at play that make very different tactics work in Shanghai vs Vancouver; in the former there's enough difficulty ensuring that all the logistics work to ensure the populace is not starving that other considerations will necessarily have to go by the wayside. We also have to consider history and cultural forces, which have inertia, whenever we consider social change over time. The western world is becoming cleaner largely by virtue of each succeeding generation encouraging its children to take stewardship of the environment seriously. Even with this tendency, we still pollute terribly. I'm not convinced that there is much of an environmental shift in Mainland Chinese culture presently, at the very least in the city cores; and if there is, I suspect it will be generations before it's taken as seriously as it is here, which is still insufficient to actually stop bad things - and still undereducated as to what risks are reasonable vs. simply protesting whatever has the right virtue-signalling associations in the current year. When you say: > As China becomes richer ...there's an implicit assumption that "becoming richer" is just a natural, unavoidable, guaranteed outcome of the modern world. This is another assumption, and one I fear would be even harder to justify than Chinese culture becoming environmentally focused in a short enough time to matter. There's no guarantee that resource extraction at the current rate needed for wealth to outgrow population growth is a guarantee. This means there's no reason to assume that the per-capita average GDP or standard of living is going to rise forever, to the point where environmentalism (in the sense that it's often more expensive) is going to become not only feasible, but fashionable. Frugality may overcome the natural human desire to display wealthiness, if the threshold is too high for the average person. Lastly - While your solution may very well become the case in the long term, and again, I hope you're right because it's truly the best outcome, we still have to deal with environmental ramifications today, both of past decisions and of decision being made right now. It's probably better to stem the tide earlier rather than waiting for it to just naturally stem itself. This might mean "environmental protectionism", in the form of heavy tariffs against goods from countries with lower environmental standards and/or poor enforcement.

naravara 9y ago

Poor, starving, and desperate people don't have the luxury to worry about environmental protections. Their governments are going to work to improve their standards of living one way or another. If they do it with our cooperation, with our more efficient technology, and with our more efficient production practices they will be able to grow in a way that is less environmentally damaging than the Industrial revolution was. Enriching them and giving them access to education and giving women reproductive choice is also the only way we are going to foster the necessary reduction in birth-rates we will need to live on Earth sustainably.

Retric 9y ago
Pollution related annual deaths in China have gotten bad enough the government does not have much of a choice. Much like how London dealt with 'Killer Fogs' hundreds of years ago when not enough wind was clearing the air; China can't completely ignore the environment because the costs are simply getting to high. However, it's going to be a long time before they embrace western style pollution controls, because there is a big gap between killing people today and killing them in 40 years.
- threeseed 9y ago
  China hasn't been ignoring the environment though and have had Western style pollution controls for years. Unfortunately it's a complicated issue: http://fortune.com/2017/01/10/china-red-alert-pollution-pm2-5/ http://fortune.com/2017/01/10/china-red-alert-pollution-pm2-... Anyone who thinks the environment is even remotely a reason for China's success in manufacturing is frankly ignorant.
  - Retric 9y ago
    The worst days are always going to be weather related everywhere, but clam days are really just magnifying the average impact not some weather pattern unique to china. Perhaps I could give them more credit for real progress, but the root cause is still a disconnect from what's on the books being a long way from what's enforced. Their smog problems largely relate to cars that would not pass US annual emissions standards from 20 years ago. Similarly coal is never 'clean' but it's not that expensive to dramatically reduce particulate emissions. And yes, cheap labor etc plays a huge role in some types of manufacturing. But, by subsidizing the inputs and lax enforcement of regulations you see dramatic shifts in many types of production well past their less harmful competitive advantages.

pg314 9y ago

In Apple's case it is mostly a labor play. They have a number of initiatives related to the environment [1]. They are trying to reduce their carbon footprint, and are close to get 100% of their power from renewable sources. They also announced their intention of a closed-loop supply chain (no new mining). Of course, they are not perfect. The Washington Post documented the horrifying exploitation of cobalt miners in Congo [2]. Some of that cobalt ended up in Apple batteries. Apple said it was addressing the issue [3]. The biggest contribution you yourself can make at this moment is to simply consume less. [1] https://images.apple.com/lae/environment/pdf/Apple_Environmental_Responsibility_Report_2017.pdf https://images.apple.com/lae/environment/pdf/Apple_Environme... [2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/business/batteries/congo-cobalt-mining-for-lithium-ion-battery/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/business/batteries/c... [3] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/03/03/apple-cracks-down-further-on-cobalt-supplier-in-congo-as-child-labor-persists/?utm_term=.6850852317fb https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/03/03...