Quote:
Originally Posted by Splum
Because it costs money to our corporations who pass that cost on to consumers. Also other countries like China and India will not be handicapped by these reductions and will become stronger, which makes the United States weaker.
What "PLAN" are you thinking we need here? We already have plenty of environmental rules that make sense, many of us recycle, there are many conservation programs across the United States. Why do you think the status quo isnt good enough?
HUMANS are not causing global warming so why should we try to prevent what we arent causing?
|
To your corporations in the US? Is that why the European nations who have enacted similar or more restrictive legislation (Kyoto?) are gaining strength while the dollar gets weaker? I hate to tell you Americans this, but you are (once again) the last ones to get on the boat, while the rest of the world points and laughs.
These arguments of 'the cost of goods will go up' and 'China/3rd World will continue to take our jobs' are decades old. Yet America appears to be doing okay. I'd worry about your massive trade defecit with China, something tells me that has more to do with the issues you are concerned about than CO2.
I do find it interesting that you used 2 of the arguments I had predicted you would. Let's examine those:
1 - Greater controls on emissions would raise the prices on consumer goods. That's been said about every environmental policy affecting big business for literally decades. Who pays for the commercials and lobbying to tell you that? You guessed it. If big businesses spent the money on reform instead of lobbying, they'd be emission-free by now. This applies to a lot of countries, but especially to America because your policymakers are in the pockets of the big corporations.
2 - Countries who have less regulation will grow stronger. The cost of making a country cleaner is negligible. For less than 1% of the annual US military budget, auto makers could retrofit their cars with low emission devices. For less than 1% livestock farmers (livestock release more greenhouse gasses than automobiles) could work on reclamation and recycling devices. The amount of money to see a noticable change is so negligible, the only excuse for not doing it is ignorance, or the desire by money-laden interests to save pennies on the dollar.
I think it is extremely arrogant when Americans deride policies widely accepted by the REST OF THE CIVILIZED WORLD and assume that because 50 other countries have examined the same data and reached the opposite conclusion, that we are clearly delusional.
In other words, do some of your own research. You will find that the cost of making changes to CO2 and other emissions is negligible. Your country spends trillions on defense and weapons. Making the air cleaner and the environment more habitable would be a drop in the bucket.
When all else fails and you realize that your leaders are more interested in protecting their corporate sponsors than they are their citizens, you can resort to the Cold War Era arguments that by weakening our corporations we are letting the Communists and Muslims win.