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Another Chinese Megapolis Shut Down By "Hazardous" Smog
Just two weeks ago we discussed the dismal smog that had closed roads and ariports around Beijing during the recent holiday. The situation has got worse, far worse, since then. As Reuters reports (and the stunning images below show), choking smog all but shut down one of northeastern China's largest cities on Monday, forcing schools to suspend classes, snarling traffic and closing the airport in the country's first major air pollution crisis of the winter. An index measuring PM2.5, or particulate matter with a diameter of 2.5 micrometers (PM2.5), reached a reading of 1,000 in some parts of Harbin, the gritty capital of northeastern Heilongjiang province and home to some 11 million people. A level above 300 is considered hazardous! China’s leadership is concerned about air quality because it is a constant source of public anger.
Users of China's popular Twitter-like Sina Weibo microblogging site reacted with both anger and bitter sarcasm over Harbin's air pollution.
"After years of effort, the wise and hard-working people of Harbin have finally managed to skip both the middle-class society and the communist society stages, and have now entered a fairyland society!" wrote one user.
Other parts of northeastern China also experienced severe smog, including Tangshan, two hours east of Beijing, and Changchun, the capital of Jilin province which borders Heilongjiang.
The World Health Organisation recommends daily levels of particulate matter with a diameter of 2.5 micrometers to be no more than twenty. Anything above 300 is considered dangerous. Levels around 1,000 were recorded in some parts of Harbin. All schools were shut and the airport was closed.
Harbin is home to some 11 million people and lies in the northeastern Heilongjiang province of China. Other parts of northeastern China also experienced severe smog.
Visibility has reduced to only around 10 metres causing traffic jams.
China’s leadership is concerned about air quality because it is a constant source of public anger.
The smog is expected to continue for the next 24 hours.
This is the freeway... (spot the cars)
Via CTV,
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Think about it. This is the fault of the environmental wackos who railed against nuclear power for the last 30 years.
their problem is, they dont have an O'asshoe who could just tell that smog to stop being smog...you didnt create urself...and it would have been written...
Progress !
there is a reason why China is developting clean thorium nuclear energy. this will pay off:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/9784044/China-blazes-trail-for-clean-nuclear-power-from-thorium.html
meanwhile, as US debt spirals out of control, the military industrial and medical complexes suck in all productivity and wealth remaining.
Knock it off. No one here wants to hear 'Good News from China'. They're commies with no tribe members or African Americans in sight.
So were china homes up 12% last week or were they Chinese caves?
Hmm.. I recall a solution for hazardous air from ol’ Tom Ridge that involved duct tape and plastic sheeting.
http://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,422141,00.html
Hey global cooling, er, I mean global warming, er, I mean environmental change activists.. where are you focusing your efforts?
I do not think all of the SUV's in the US can duplicte the pollution of that one Chinese city.. or a single erupting volcano.
To combat global climate change (as a gardener I see it clearly) one has to do less, not more. Focus on less mechanical effort and more human effort. The advantages are: save money, stable weight, deter diabetes, better air quality, less environmental destruction, combat depression, increase intelligence. Do your research.
The silver lining on this is that China is making big contributions to renewable energy.
To combat global climate change (as a gardener I see it clearly) one has to do less, not more.
Humans are on a suicide mission with nature, and there's no stopping human stupidity. Doing less is unfortunately not a solution when you consider the fact that the average human will not change ways until run over by the freight train of climate change. Seemingly the only option is the hope that research can be speedy enough to defeat the low iq crowd.
If Chinese officials are worried about people's anger at pollution, with that level of particulate matter in the air, think how concerned Chinese officials will be when the sheeple are angry 10 years from now about all their relatives in Beijing dying from lung cancer.
You would have to be pretty stupid to be killed by a temperature variation of a few degrees .
I didn't think any ZH poster would be quite that feeble witted ...until now.
Don't worry your posts will remain long after those dreaded warmer ( or is it colder) winters finally knock you off the perch...
Like most doltish warmists he apparently thinks patronizing and talking down to people, as he insults them further, works to bolster the facts. Then they can't get their head around why no one takes them seriously, or is interested in their smarmy insult-backed modelling and hyperbole. Then they complain about ad-hom content in critique. Plus they try to pretend one thing is really another, i.e. pea-soup smog = global warmist argument victory.
'Pea-Soup' smog occurred in western Europe as well before they got serious about decreasing particulate emissions, and it had damaging effects on wildlife and vegetation. But hey, let's put 'er all in a propaganda blender, and present a fait-accompli anti-human puree.
Disclaimer: Element is funded by Koch bros. I mention this as it's their latest standard broad-brush accusation and cop-out for why they've failed to present credible models with confirmation, are boring as hell, and why large numbers of other scientists think they're basically dishonest, if not mildly to markedly deranged.
Some recent quotes from low IQ people:
http://www.climatedepot.com/2013/10/09/un-climate-report-goes-bust-even-...
Whale murdering
Climate denier...
Have you ever been to China? Know any native born Chinese? Or are you just parroting what the MSM has fed you?
I'm a know reclusive parrot with parrot-anger issues. I'm not allowed out of my cage.
Right, just like MIT did in 1974. Still waiting...
you belong on brietbart
Try telling that to Japan and the millions that will die from radiation induced cancer. China could probably cut the contamination in half with some simple methods but they instead choose not to.
I was in Beijing last winter during the last pollution nightmare. The Government is in denial about the source, claiming it is the cars on the road, so that people think they need the pollution to become a modern country.
From the stink you can tell it is coal and older trucks causing the pollution. That can be controlled but requires some investment in things other than empty cities. Nuclear is a very expensive answer with many side effects.
Not only has America exported $ inflation around the world, it seems that with all the USA's production lost to China, they've exported the pollution too.
You mean megatonnes of cheap consumer goods can't be produced without pollution?
Yeah, all that bituminous coal coming out of West Virginia has been going to China for power plants for decades, while it is too dirty to pass EPA muster in the US.
US +1, China -2, the world -1. Coal, meh.
Exactly. This does not concern me unless the endless supply of cheap electronics and crappy plastic good starts to slow. I went to China last Spring and it was a real eye opener. They have a LOT of problems. Anyone who believes all the hype about their economy is smoking something.
That's pretty much what I said. 3 minutes before you said it. :-)
Mon, 10/21/2013 - 11:22 | 4075944The 'Fog of Peace'. The 'Fog of Prosperity'.
Not only has the US exported its Currency Supply (and exported its inflation), but it has also exported its pollution.
We either think alike, or... "There's nothing irresistible than an idea whose time has come"? :-)
At least the Japanes have clean air in Fukushima. You can't see, smell, feel, hear radiation, so it must be good.
It's my understanding that radiation DOES leave a metallic taste in yer mouth...
"and the millions that will die from radiation induced cancer"
LOL. Shall we add these poor souls to the "millions" that died from Chernobyl? Stupid fearmongering.
So rr you have been to Chernobyl and the 100 mile radius around it and seen for your self that there are no new grave markers?
Eh, Kiev, population 2.7 MILLION, lies 80 miles. Fear monger.
Don't
https://www.google.com/search?q=chernobyl+babies&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=gWVlUtHAEeLb2AWW44AI&sqi=2&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAQ&biw=1280&bih=633
Joke
https://www.google.com/search?q=bikini+atoll+jellyfish+babies&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=zGVlUv6RMKGx2QWf8IH4Ag&sqi=2&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAQ&biw=1280&bih=633
About
http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2003/Mar/02/ln/ln05a.html
Radiation
http://fukushima-diary.com/tag/mass-death/
I am WOAR. Trust me. I know the effects of radiation on people. It's not something you ignore, nor is it something you wish upon your worst enemies. It ruins the land for decades, for no reason other than spite. It is a worthless weapon that gives no spoils to the victor.
Oh please, stop using completly made up hyperbole! All credible estimates of deaths from every nuclear accident combined don't equal the annual deaths from burning coal. Look at those pictures above, and think about how many cases of lung cancers that smog will trigger.
Plus, the anti-nuclear crowd is to blame for the Japanese nuclear accident. Their opposition to progress in the field is the main reason outdated plants like Fukushima stayed online as long as they have.
Lung cancer isn't the problem. Scarring is the problem. Lungs which have scars can't breath. You suffocate to death. Slowly.
Think about the reason your lungs are both internal, and hidden behind your rib cage, it's because they are the most delicate part of your body exposed to the environment.
A little drop of acid on your skin might cause a scar, won't matter too much, the same drop of acid in an aerosol in your lungs is another matter.
I was naughty, not nice this year.
I suspect that Santa will be leaving a lump of spent fuel rod in my stocking this Christmas.
I'm pretty sure that the people around Fukushima are going to side with "the wackos".
Well to be fair, there's nuclear, and there's nuclear from the lowest bidder with weapons in mind.
"Well to be fair, there's nuclear, and there's nuclear from the lowest bidder with weapons in mind."
Good point, let's call the new safer nuclear newclear
The real kick in the balls is this pollution has been drifting over to Japan over time. Fucking 1-2 punch.
So would that make Fuku the Japanese response to Chinese air pollution or vice versa. It's so hard to keep track without a scorecard and mine has chicken scratches all over it
There is no one around Fukushima, the area was forced evacuation within hours of the Fukushima going critical. Only thing left are the dead bodies!
Is there an active orginization agains nuclear power in china? I always thought the Chinese gov did what the fcuk they want dispite any protesting cockroaches which are crushed under the boot of the olagarchy.
It's about cost. China has vast, cheap coal deposits. Low tech (and dirty) coal fired power plants can be built virtually overnight (well, not exactly overnight). When you take quality of life out of the equation, the cost advantage is compeling
Looks to me like the Chinese are parangongs of monolizing the pollutionizing and environmental toxification means. One might even say blobbing-up resources like there is no tomorrow, and polluting far more than US 'american' citizenism citizens.
Could it be that USA is just the scrapegoat for Chinese inability to find fault with their own authortarian, materialistic, "progress at any cost" short-sighted policies?
Must be a contradictions here somewhere.
AnAnonymous, AnAnonymous, please coordinate.
Ha make me laugh. It is a firmament of smokiness. Whenever you see blobbing up, you can be assured that is due to Chinese citizenism and running dog crypto-fascist Chinese imperialism. AnAnonymous is found on roadside, droppings deep and wide in the fog of Chinese citizenism.
Your wordings of the mind and throating of ideas are very much something, the incarnation milk of crustiness himself.
While the silence of George Dishwashington, apostle and parangong of citizenism, deafens the listening means. Wherefore shart thou AnAnonymous?
He must be giving birth to another brown baby Mao. Another orphan blobbed-down onto the roadside.
That's one Chinese baby that will not be adopted by an 'american' gay couple.
Make me glad.
At least they can now flip off the TPTB and not get caught
No, it isn't. China doesn't have 'environmental wackos who railed against nuclear power for the last 30 years.' The gov't does what it wants, and, has built a shit-load of nuclear plants.
Yeah that's healthy. I want to live there.
Bbbbut it's a People's Paradise?!
Was.
Once it was a living garden from Ocean to Mountains, there were no bigger engineered or architected landscapes that provided so much for so long ever. From the terraced paddies that outdate all known functioning civilzations. The same pictures of perfectly framed garden and farming landscapes we see today were there 5000 years ago and maintained through the rise and fall of hundreds of civilzations.
http://www.chinatravel.com/facts/history-of-chinese-garden.htm
The historical descriptions of the processes taken to make a landscape functional as a medicine cabinet, a home, a grocery store, the renewable energy to provide maintenance and future construction and keep it within an acceptable design practice that it just appears to fit perfectly. It was a major trade spot, people travelling for years on carvan to trade along the ancient silk road, only thing that has changed is the method and how long it takes to get from point A and B.
It was one of the largest pieces of overlooked human engineering, ever, that was practically self sustaining, until the British showed up then shit got stupid.
Hmmmm, better start checking the latent pollution on Chinese made crap we import.
Coal ash makes a nutrient rich additive for 'merican consumer.
Lived over there for 6 years. Some of the NE cities are the worst- Shenyang, Changchun are unbelievably polluted. Sore throat everyday and eyes burned so bad at times you couldn't see. But hey, at least you have a job Right?
Think of it as a form or population-growth control. It's not like they don't have enough people. "Not my beer".
Don't see this impacting their ability to export stuff or their PhD's to the US. Crank it higher, for all I care.
Ooh, do I now sound like a selfish Republican, rather than a bleeding-heart, save-the-world Liberal? I'm so sorry. /s
The price of progress.
Reminds me of good old Eastern Europe, kind of makes me feel warm and comfortable. People had to be rather close and be able to distinguish between shades of Grey ./sarc
london fog
...and Chinese authorities roll out another BBQ ban, lol.
Next BAD BREATH BAN!
All the gold in the world won't make that pig attractive.
We have a new weather metric. I have been to Beijing when it was "over 300", in the winter. It was like being in a sealed garage with a fleet of diesel buses running. Downright fearful. Harbin is even moar industrial, and colder so they are already running the coal. 1000 is terrifying.
My wife's father is visiting relatives in Harbin now, he texted some photos to us yesterday, they look no different than those above.
I remember a one-day layover I had in a smoggy Guangzhou in 2008, spent the afternoon exploring along the Pearl River. By the end of the day I was coughing, and couldn't shake it until 2 weeks later.
This is progess?
behind all that smog lies a greater good.
Thus sayest Chairman Mao. "China has a population of 600 million; even if half of them are killed, there are still 300 million people left. I’m not afraid of anyone.”
Pecunia non olet...the Romans were wrong...money does stink.
Ah me so horny.
what has been done will be done again.. nothing new under the sun folks
http://cc.owu.edu/~rdfusch/the_smoke_at_widnes_the_midlands.jpg
Another proof why the world economy cannot grow indefinitely on this planet with limited space and resources.
and the global population for that matter
"Another proof why the world economy cannot grow indefinitely on this planet with limited space and resources."
Wrong, more like proof that they are burning coal without filtering the smoke - do we burn coal in Europe? Yes
This is what happens when you have the lack of property rights, this has nothing to do with growth. This is an unaccountable communist regime in place.
I hear you, property rights enabled by carbon taxes and
made neutral by an Affordable Air Act ?
this is just the cost of being the worlds reserve currency.
"Chinese believed experimenting with secret 'cloaking device' - Pentagon demands bigger budget."
Isn't the Pentagon always asking for more?
So much for transparency of the Chinese government...
They are being transparent....you just can't see it !
Best comment I've read all day!
the invisible hand busily at work...
The highly visible communist hand.
Looks like AnAnonymous on that bicycle.
Low visibility. Be aware of poopings on the roadside.
I see an export explosion: bottled air from the US. Bottle it in DC and see if they get the joke.
The air in D.C. has too much CO2 and Methane in it from all the scumbags talking out of both of their holes.
I was thinking the sulphur content might be a tad high.
the air in D.C. is too hot ...
the chinese could easily fix the situation, but they choose not to do so, and the people will not complain for fear of reprisal, so they're just screwed. Yay communism!
The people will not complain? You obviously know nothing about China. There's more than likely riots going on in the country right now. In case you didn't know, their population is massive and not everything out of China reaches the MSM.
How's that working out for them?
.......and after enough men have died, the people will return to their jobs and consider themselves lucky they survived only to die later of lung cancer. Nothing changes in China unless it lines the pocket of the elite. Kinda how things are progressing (regressing ) here in the USSA.
And just how do you propose that the "chinese could easily fix the situation"? What, turn off all the coal fueled power plants? And oh how they larfed.
I believe a catalytic converter costs $2000 to fit on car exhausts, but why bother? The smog is someone elses problem. So most cars (apart from nice shiny Merc's) don't have them.
The chinese should just start using all the Greeeen Energy equipement that is being built there thanks to Dear Leader Pole Smoker...DUH! That shit works right...right?
The smog is a weapon. Too many Chinaman for TPTB.
Calling Al Gore. He'll tax the AMericans for Chinese pollution. After all Gore has to be pollically correct. Guess the liberals don't want to offend the people buying US debt and disrrupt the agenda.
Al Gore is a schmuck. Stop mentioning him.
I wonder if Al Gore can see China from his Pacific-coast uber-mansion.
If not, he can sure see it from his Gulfstream Bizjet.
A Libertarian dream! Unfettered and unregulated capitalism. Pollution. FUCK YOU! Low paid workers. FUCK YOU! Dangerous products. FUCK YOU! But they sure do get paaaaaiiiiddd at the top!
Is there some capitalism going on some place that I don't know about? Let me know where it is so I can go check it out. I believe that you struggle with identifying the difference between capitalism and fascism.
Not really. They are destroying human and environmental capital. Liberty does not mean that you can destroy other people's capital or hurt them.
Does this include carving the world up into "private property" so the masses can be starved out until they trade labor for wages?
There are several preconditions to establish a free market and you cannot miss any of them. One is that the means of exchange also has to be fully private. No funny money, no state decrees of what constitutes money, no prohibitions on precious metals or anything else as means of exchange, store of value or unit of account.
If property is bought for money in exchange of labor, it will tend to be much more well distributed across the population, we used to call it "middle class" back in the days. This is because there is no factor 1:10,000 difference between individuals in how much labor we can do. Perhaps 1:5 or 1:10 but such differences are tolerable and respected. What is not respected is accumulation of wealth through rent seeking. With high interest rates, if you do not work, you cannot earn property rights. High interest rates favors savers and those living beyond their means.
If property is bought for fiat money using leverage, it will not only drive vicious business cycles and pull valuable collateral towards the center of the monetary system, i.e. towards banks, but also, wealth in general will gravitate towards the top of a social pyramid where the bottom become permanent serf fixtures propping up the middle, which in turn becomes debt slaves, using leveraged bidding to chase dwindling resources. Low interest rates favors consumption and living beyond ones means.
China and many other countries run on a hybrid state controlled system, which does not really have a free market. Most very rich people in China have an original sin, such as corruption, bribery or connections with officials that made them successful. Talk to any businessman in China and see if they agree that there is a free market and anyone with talent can succeed. It is not the case. You cannot even convert the China monopoly currency freely. China is very far from a free market in most regards.
Freedom and markets have nothing to do with one and other. Only people who are under threat market themselves or anything else for that matter. Whether its to pay a state/lord/king a tax, or to pay rent or a mortgage, or to buy food from Kroger, free humans have no need of markets.
Your indoctrination runs deep.
so how do free humans get the things they want then? Like food?
I grow my own food and this TDoS guy has me thinking...
I grow as much of my own as I can. I hunt, gather, and trap as well. I hope to get my family as self reliant as possible, as well as my few neighbors doing the same thing.
They do like every other living thing on Earth, and they eat what their local ecosystem provides. Maybe that means hunting, maybe it means fishing, maybe it means eating fruit from trees, maybe it means growing squash and corn, etc.
The owner class has the land locked up and the food locked up behind a paywall. You get to trade your life for scraps, and there is a thin blue line of riot cops making sure you don't get wise. Really though, the gun is in your head at this point. You've internalized your role as a wage earning consumer, and like a victim of Stockholm syndrome, you sympathize with your oppressor and them and their paradigm.
Indoctrination, may it so be, but it does not imply incorrectness.
The assertion that only threat causes market participation is incorrect. There are varying degrees of living, not a binary world of threatened/not threatened.
You may argue that a fully self sufficient human has no need for a market, which is self-evidently true. A market is a generalization of individual actions. If you buy food from someone else, that implies you are bartering something in return, unless you are on the receving end of an act of charity. The question is, how do you value that item. This question is important. You can value it without any benchmarks such as prices as a good friend, but in the interest of your own livelihood, you ought to see the merits of achieving a fair deal for both parties.
Further, your interpretation of freedom as a nomad roaming the lands will quickly change once another freely roaming human sticks a gun towards your head and says, "give me those vegetables". Things get dicey once population density increases to something more than a few scattered villages. Conflicts over resources will inevitably arise between these "free humans who have nothing to do with one another", and they will have to be settled, one way or another. This issue is intimately related to the need for good governance, rule of law and property rights.
But on the issue of markets specifically, what you are effectively saying is that free humans have little or no need for division of labor, because without marketplaces, such division becomes impossible on a large scale. While the overwhelming majority evidently prefers the material advantages and the complex societies that this division provides, withdrawal remains a possibility if you have a means to become self sufficient. A market is by definition is based on voluntary participation of buyers and sellers. Otherwise it is not a market.
Who decided they first owned the land that they then sold in some form of a market? In the beginning, the land wasn't owned by anyone, but someone comes along and says "this is mine" and then sells it to someone who has to get money from someone else and so on and so forth.
I'm all for free markets and the ability to trade what you have for what you want in a transaction that is beneficial to all parties involved, but it's naive to think that even free market capitalism is free, because someone has to take advantage of others to start it all.
In the beginning, the land also did not have infrastructure, technology, social networks, educated potential employees, moral standards and many other things. Regardless of who built it, inevitably a deal has to be made and contributions flow two ways. Whether you refer to this as "taking advantage" or "negotiating" seems to depend somewhat on your political viewpoint, as well as the quality of the deal struck.
Free markets are not silver bullets that solve every problem, but the world economy is not doing so great despite all the state intervention and there are reasons for that. One of the most important points is that you want to avoid any sort of exponential functions wreaking havoc, redistributing 90% or more of the wealth into the top 1% hands. Exponential ever growing functions, especially monsters like "compounding returns", do not emanate from a free market. They emanate from government decree and forced use of fiat currency backed by mathematically unstoppable growth of debt. These creatures are not born in a marketplace. Without government backstopping of debt, debts cannot grow bigger than the capacity to serve them, and they default. This process of getting bad debts out of the system has been suspended. That should be the main concern.
You keep using that word (Libertarian). I do not think it means what you think it means.
Dont they use catalytic converters in China?
It's not only engine technology, the fuel itself is still high sulphur (diesel + gasoline) and minimum RVP for gasoline is also too high (e.g. China blends Methanol in gasoline).
No. They're too expensive to bother with. Beijing authority is, I believe, thinking of introducing a law to retro-fit.
holy shit.
Not only did we export career employment and manufacturing - we exported smog too.
The 'Fog of Peace'. The 'Fog of Prosperity'.
Not only has the US exported its Currency Supply (and exported its inflation), but it has also exported its pollution.
Smoke & mirrors. Smoke & mirrors.
Wi No Si.
Those are some astonishing photos there folks, we are fucking this rock we call home on an industiral scale. Often I sit in quiet reflection on why I brought kids into todays world. Might be the innocence of youth, but times just were not like this when I was a kid.
Talk about the mess we are leaving behind us?
With silver being so cheap, they can really crank out those solar panels. Too bad they won't work there, as Smog & Mirrors don't mix.
Hau Long before one of those Chinese oligarchs figures out that there's more profit in pollution tech and equipment?
They need Oboner over there closing down coal fired power plants and GE building "clean and SAFE" nuclear power plants. Hopefully they have plenty of fault lines they can build the plants on to ensure future meltdowns.
for all of the political rhetoric, usa exports a lot of coal to china.
Growth for the sake of growth has never been a better idea!
Always remember that "Growth" is a Keynesian notion.
It actually a Keynesian requirement when coupled with its cheating twin of. Fractional reserve banking.
CHINA is FUCKING the WORLDS ENVIRONMENT>
JAPAN surely contests with that Prize...even more so with FUCK-YOU-SHIMA in play
Beijing has new rules. If bad pollution is forecast for three straight days, they will shut down all factories, schools and strictly limit cars. If there's a repeat of last Janaury, it could mean one or two days at least of the city shutting down. If this year is colder, it could mean several smogidays coming to Beijing.
Lithium Catalyst: No Planes, No Trains, And No Automobiles As Record Smog Shuts Beijing TSLA, LIT, ILC.v, TNR.v, RM.v
"Now we have another confirmation of the very important trend that we have discussed yesterday and you can realise why China becomes now the Top player in the Lithium market under the radar screen of Facebook investment community."
http://sufiy.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/powered-by-lithium-how-electric.html#
China is winning!!!
.08% of the population of China breathes thick polluted air? This is news? SMOG-Fodder for the State.
First, that's a lot of people raw numbers wise.
Second, would you like it to be YOU? Count your blessings.
Third, almost every major city in China is similarly polluted. It's just not every day that the regime shuts things down (gotta keep producing you know).
You can have capitalism or you can have a livable planet. Mountains in West Virgina are leveled, the Boreal forest of Canada is clear cut, every shale formation is fractured, the oceans scraped clean by trawlers with nets larger than jet planes.
You can convert the living world into "products" and then throw them away for more "products" or you can live within the limits of what the living eco-system can provide willingly. You cannot do both.
"Wise Apes" my ass.
This is far from capitalism. A free market doesn't waste or pump out throw away consumer products that are shipped to a country run by debt and a printing press.
It's absolutely capitalism. Your love for that word, your deep set identification with it prevents you from acknowledging the ugly truth.
Let's see, lands are privatized for excavation and mining, to provide energy and raw materials (all of this CAPITAL) so that private entities, from energy corporations to Apple and other gadget makers can take profits from producing consumer goods, which are made from exploited laboring classes and then sold for currency so that these corporations can increase their capital holdings, of more land, more infrastructure, etc.
Those who fly the gold and black are almost as delusional as modern liberals. Both believe that capitalism can be nice, and kind, and gentle, and eco friendly. The only difference is that the former believes that this is capitalism's natural state, despite it NEVER having been that way since its inception, and despite the words of the original capitalist thinkers.
Arthur Young, a popular writer and economic thinker respected by John Stuart Mill, wrote in 1771: “everyone but an idiot knows that the lower classes must be kept poor, or they will never be industrious.”
Just like a public beach, when noone's looking people take a dump in the sand. Your psuedo-socialist quotes can't change that.
Yes, the occasional fudge dragon on the beach is clearly comparable to the evironmental destruction being wrought by those seeking profits for share holders. I mean, just because one is bringing us to the verge of extinction, and the other is just a solid bummer should you step in it, I can see how your comparison isn't so asinine as to be farcical.
But way to drop the key word "socialist" which of course is the end all be all evil, so because you called me one, I must be one, and all of my posts are to be ignored.
I guess I shouldnt expect anything of value from a uber-capitalist.
I hear ya.
If you haven't already seen this site: http://peakwatch.typepad.com/decline_of_the_empire/
The author hits the human condition(ing) just like you.
Maybe in Liberia:
http://youtu.be/ZRuSS0iiFyo?t=12m14s
Or during Orange Crush.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dULuAOGhOEY
I call bull-shit, If the governments in China did not interfere, and prevent private individuals from filing suit against big corporations for real, demonstratable harm - Many of these factories would be forced to clean up their act in an instant.
Governments make corporations possible, not the other way around. Human liberation requires abolition of both state and capital. It's almost pointless to discuss, as industrial civilization is fast making life on Earth impossible.
Will you sing the praise of capitalism when rampant crop failures starve out your families? When the oceans are devoid of life, and their ability to produce breathable oxygen.
Your corpses will clutch dollar bills. Er, sorry, gold coins.
However, humans with insatiable greed will pump out throw away products purchased with a neverending pile of debt. Any -ism you can think of is just a way to assign humans to easily mentally-digestible groups. Greed and finite resources don't mix too well.
It really doesn't have anything to do with "ism"s or "ist"s. Pollution is simply a byproduct of keeping 7 billion human beings alive.
We went way past the earth's natural carrying capacity round about the 1890s.
"Ism's" are tools of the civilization experiment. Industrialism, capitalism, feudalism, et al. These are organizing methods in order to accomplish one basic thing: Control more. Expand to new places to exploit the resources. Kill resistors, rape them, assimilate them. Use gained resources to bolster strength, and repeat. Except now there is no where left to go, so the machine begins eating itself. Welcome to collapse.
So, wasn't London like this back in the day?
What price glory eh.
Send over the EPA, god knows we need to get them the fuck out of America!!
One of the most unregulated areas of air pollution are not cars or even trucks or industry, but SHIPS.
Little to no control is applied to what they can and do spew out. Even in the US.
Cancer is what you get for stealing US jobs
Enjoy!
They didn't steal them. Your leaders fell over themselves to hand them away.