[twoodfin]

> We're screwing up our direct environment for certain as that is directly observable...

Is it really? I guess it depends on what you mean by "we", but I was under the impression that major "tangible" environmental statistics in the U.S. have been on a positive trend for decades. Smog, acid rain, toxic metals etc.

http://blogs.reuters.com/gregg-easterbrook/2011/09/01/the-fi...

[gouranga]

It's a fair observation, but that is the US. There's a big rug in the far east with lots of toxic crap under it. There's also a lot of stuff we buried in various places and cross fingers it'll never escape.

[saalweachter]

It's occasionally said that we aren't importing manufactured goods to China, we're exporting pollution.

[twoodfin]

That's fair, though. They'd rather have dirty, labor-intensive manufacturing to grow a middle class out of grinding agricultural poverty and we'd rather have desk jobs and cheap clothes.

It's a fantasy to believe there's anything more than a marginally better alternative. Certainly China is going to industrialize a lot "cleaner" and faster than we did, and when they have a real middle class they'll start caring about pollution a lot more. And it won't be "too late", I suspect.

[andrewflnr]

IMO, deforestation is one of the worse global problems. Also those giant rafts of trash in the oceans.