[wolvoleo]

> With respect to avoidance of “dirty” jobs. The EU is far, far worse in this respect than the United States is or was.

Well yeah. Because we care about the environment and people like to enjoy their retirement instead of sitting in a wheelchair with COPD due to inhaling a lifetime of toxic dust.

China is getting better at it too, but only a few years ago I remember a story of all the toxic lakes where all the byproducts of neodymium mining were dumped.

[orochimaaru]

You don’t care about the environment. You care about the environment in your backyard. Otherwise you would not import rare earths and minerals from China (which Europe does).

[estearum]

Pretty sure consumers would still buy all the nice downstream products even if they damaged their own backyards.

Evidence: Long history of us doing exactly that.

Valuing convenience, modern products etc does not mean one "doesn't care" about the negative externalities, just like going out to eat at a nice restaurant doesn't mean someone "doesn't care" about saving money.

[tbossanova]

Individual EUers might care about the environment. It’s pretty hard to personally avoid any dirty imported stuff as you just don’t know where it all ends up. Though I guess overall voting patterns might back up your argument

[buckle8017]

What are you talking about its trivial to avoid purchasing product's produced in environmentally unfriendly ways.

All products from China are manufactured with electricity that is largely coal.

You just mean it's not economical.

[j16sdiz]

> electricity that is largely coal.

Kind of. China is at 55% Coal and 40% Renewable, with renewable climbing each year.

Compare to USA 40% Gas, 20% Coal, 20% Renewable, with renewable more or less steady.

[buckle8017]

Brother if you believe that I have a bridge to sell you.

[Saline9515]

Are you trying to say that it's trivial to avoid buying Chinese manufactured products? Where is the keyboard you are typing on made, by the way?

[buckle8017]

Sure it's trivial, but it's inconvenient and expensive.

I don't do it because I accept that my keyboard was made with coal.

But I would prefer my keyboard was made in America burning American coal.

[to11mtm]

... you know when you put it that way, it would not surprise me if lobbyists dovetailed the 'cant do stuff in US/EU because of env regs' with the various types of Union busting the US likes to do and for some in the EU it would be the perfect scapegoat for...

[pests]

> a few years ago I remember a story of all the toxic lakes where all the byproducts of neodymium mining were dumped.

You might be thinking of Baotou, Inner Mongolia, China.

[JSR_FDED]

Sorry but while that was once true, the current administration has reversed that pretty dramatically. You personally might care about the environment, but when you use “we” in the context of US/China it no longer holds true.

[wolvoleo]

No I mean "we" as in the EU, definitely not the US. The US is sliding back fast, being the only country to pull out of the paris accord (which itself was only the bare minimum needed to halt climate change)