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> China is the biggest pollutant by far: over twice as much CO2 as the USA, and of course they've been poisoning everything with toxic waste for decades. That'
by elfexec 7y ago
> China is the biggest pollutant by far: over twice as much CO2 as the USA, and of course they've been poisoning everything with toxic waste for decades.
That's because the US, Europe, Japan, etc sent their polluting manufacturing to china for decades. Go read about the US-China detente in the 60s/70s.
> Why can't governments stop all Chinese imports until the get in line, instead of banning plastic straws?
Because "governments" sent manufacturing/pollution to china decades ago so that the pollution is in china and not in the US, Europe, Japan, etc and they get cheap imports.
> That's the real question no one asks.
No. That is the anti-china talking point peddled all over social media by dedicated group of "people/bots/etc".
Sure, I guess china could stop polluting. But then it would mean that the pollution would be in the US, Europe, Japan, etc like in the 1900s.
Did you know that China has been one of the biggest sources of plastics in the ocean? Do you know why? Because most of the world sends/sent their garbage to china to "recycle".
We can blame "china", but it is we who are producing the garbage and it is we who are consuming so much and creating so much pollution in china. Pollution in china is why london, paris, ny, pittsburgh, LA, etc aren't covered in smog and the rivers aren't filled with toxic slime.
- nkkollaw 7y agoI think part of the reason why China pollutes and in general has awful business practices is because their regulation are not in line with ours. If they were—and if they didn't steal IP from Western companies—their products would be as expensive as ours. Lastly, you could very well be one of those "dedicated group of "people/bots/etc"." that you're talking about. I see plenty of weird comments defending China here on HN whenever it's mentioned.