U.S. Not Doing Enough to Protect Coral Reefs

[HammerNoMore]

And some of these are not U.S. based companies, either.

It is much easier to be critical that to be correct...

 

[diverbrian]

It is much easier to be critical that to be correct...

Ask about a major appliance manufacturer based in a European country that just announced that they are shutting down their plant here about 1 1/2 hr drive from me to move that operations to another country where the labor and environmental regulations are less costly. This is in spite of our Governor and workers at the plant trying to offer concessions to allow them to stay.

I believe that our state is doing the right thing, but I wish that other countries would play be the same rules. Our groundwater and air is finally starting to recover from the manufacturers that were fouling it for years. That is nice and I appreciate it. It would be nicer if other places played by the same environmental rules so that they could all have the cleaner groundwater and air.

 

[HammerNoMore]

FYI, my statement was in agreement with you...it wasn't really clear.

 

[chrisch]

The US is the world's biggest polluter in terms of volume of greenhouse gas. No - and to its credit - its nuclear plants and so on do not leak, just build up waste for the next million years. It is a rich country and doesn't want to kill its citiizens. It does still test weapons - Bush has just re-instated the Star Wars thing.
As to Kyoto the only really good thing about it was it set an example. Bush set a bad example by refusing to sign it. Kyoto is pointless as it doesn't cover countries like China - a country that will soon overtake the US as #1 polluter.
As a European I am embarrased by what we have done here. Like most English people I have friends and relatives in the US and do not knock it lightly. The problem is an oil billionaire like Bush is running the country. I think Gore would have probably signed up for Kyoto.
The US must lead us out of the problem by example. It could (and BTW make stacks of money doing it) but for its present administration and its supporters...
The earlier postings about cheap imports from countries with poor records are totally spot-on. The US balance of payments deficit and current weak dollar are due to imports from China. Meantime decent hard-working US citizens are working for peanuts in a call-centre. Bush's answer is to slap import taxes on French cheese. Stunning.
Best wishes to our good friends over the pond.
Chris

 

[Kim]

Coming from the UK I have to ask - what manufacturing do you think we have left?? In my lifetime we have lost all our cars, ships, coalmines, steel etc to other places. There used to be a whole town built around the Dunlop factory - Dunlop moved to Eastern Europe and the town literally disappeared (with the highest suicide rate in the UK for a few years) .This is not new - but you have to realize its the new world order or die out. The US still has major players like Boeing, Ford, Microsoft and others - more than most I'd say.
To say the US also has no R&D is also a fallacy - who are the major players in things like GM crops? If they are not important why is the US administration literally trying to force the stuff down the throats of unwilling markets across the planet?
For years all Europeans (private and industrial) have paid much higher energy costs than in the US. Compare what the US consumer pays for a gallon of gas to what it costs in any other major industrial nation. Is that fair? Doesn't that create unfair advantages?
As globalization spreads - heavily led by US companies - there is of course a downside: outsourcing, factory closures etc. Surely though this is the price that has to be paid - how can you have your cake and eat it too? Believe me, if you think you are hurting now in the States you should have tried living in the UK when Margeret Thatcher was in power - ouch!!!
The only reason that I heard from the US about why they wouldn't sign up to Kyoto was that it 'was not in the economic interests of America'. That is the same standpoint that was much later taken by Russia. India and China I don't really know about I have to admit - but I suspect the same sort of self-centered reasoning. More than 200 other countries did - including all the European Union, Japan, Australia, & South Korea. To use an argument that 3 other countries didn't so why should the US (when it was actually the US who refused first I believe) seems ridiculous to me.
If the object of the exercise is to save the planet surely we need a plan? Kyoto is a plan that almost everyone agrees with - not an American plan - a World plan! If America can develop a better one (GWB said they could!) where is it? what is it? when is it going to happen??
Lots of countries have already gone through a lot of pain. No-one said that it's going to be free, or easy.

 

[MikeFerrara]

Some good points Kim but to respond to a couple points...

The US still has major players like Boeing, Ford, Microsoft and others - more than most I'd say.

Yes we still have ford but they outsource an awful lot. I spent about 10 years working for an OEM that was a supplier to ford and a ton of ford components are manufactured out of the country. They just put it all in the same box and start calling it a car in Detroit.

And yes we have Microsoft and the government seems determined to sue them out of existance. If I was bill gates, I'd shut it all down and go home.

To say the US also has no R&D is also a fallacy - who are the major players in things like GM crops?

I've worked for companies that had R&D facilities bigger than most of the manufacturing facilities that we have today. They are gone and that isn't a fallacy. The current trend that I see is to partner with a company who has a technology that you want, play middle man and try to get paid for doing nothing. The company I work for now has a department they call R&F that's a smallish engineering group that decides what to buy and how it'll fit together. My office used to be better equiped than their lab. LOL

We do far less development in manufacturing processes than we used to. We just ship high volume assemplies out of the country and throw cheap people at it. The R&D isn't required, the engineering effort isn't required and the capitol investment is small.

For years all Europeans (private and industrial) have paid much higher energy costs than in the US. Compare what the US consumer pays for a gallon of gas to what it costs in any other major industrial nation. Is that fair? Doesn't that create unfair advantages?

Fair has little to do with anything.

As globalization spreads - heavily led by US companies - there is of course a downside: outsourcing, factory closures etc. Surely though this is the price that has to be paid - how can you have your cake and eat it too? Believe me, if you think you are hurting now in the States you should have tried living in the UK when Margeret Thatcher was in power - ouch!!!

Price to be paid by who and for what? No doubt there are countries that have things a lot tougher than many people in the US but I still have no desire to be any poorer. While the US may be considered a rich country, not every one living here is rich.

Psersonally in the last couple of years I've gone from having a pretty good percentage of my income being available for discretionary spending to almost none while my income has gone up. I can't complain about how I live and I sure get enough to eat yet it's getting to the point that living is all we do. Personally, I'm against it. LOL

The only reason that I heard from the US about why they wouldn't sign up to Kyoto was that it 'was not in the economic interests of America'. That is the same standpoint that was much later taken by Russia. India and China I don't really know about I have to admit - but I suspect the same sort of self-centered reasoning. More than 200 other countries did - including all the European Union, Japan, Australia, & South Korea. To use an argument that 3 other countries didn't so why should the US (when it was actually the US who refused first I believe) seems ridiculous to me.
If the object of the exercise is to save the planet surely we need a plan? Kyoto is a plan that almost everyone agrees with - not an American plan - a World plan! If America can develop a better one (GWB said they could!) where is it? what is it? when is it going to happen??
Lots of countries have already gone through a lot of pain. No-one said that it's going to be free, or easy.

Yes we need a world plan to save the world. I don't think the world is ready for a world plan for anything though. They can't stop shooting each other long enough to work on it. We are not all on the same team. The new world order may be a nice dream for the future but...too many people are challanged enough with the day to day business of living.

 

[Boogie711]

Coming from the UK I have to ask - what manufacturing do you think we have left?? In my lifetime we have lost all our cars, ships, coalmines, steel etc to other places. There used to be a whole town built around the Dunlop factory - Dunlop moved to Eastern Europe and the town literally disappeared (with the highest suicide rate in the UK for a few years) .This is not new - but you have to realize its the new world order or die out. The US still has major players like Boeing, Ford, Microsoft and others - more than most I'd say.
To say the US also has no R&D is also a fallacy - who are the major players in things like GM crops? If they are not important why is the US administration literally trying to force the stuff down the throats of unwilling markets across the planet?
For years all Europeans (private and industrial) have paid much higher energy costs than in the US. Compare what the US consumer pays for a gallon of gas to what it costs in any other major industrial nation. Is that fair? Doesn't that create unfair advantages?
As globalization spreads - heavily led by US companies - there is of course a downside: outsourcing, factory closures etc. Surely though this is the price that has to be paid - how can you have your cake and eat it too? Believe me, if you think you are hurting now in the States you should have tried living in the UK when Margeret Thatcher was in power - ouch!!!
The only reason that I heard from the US about why they wouldn't sign up to Kyoto was that it 'was not in the economic interests of America'. That is the same standpoint that was much later taken by Russia. India and China I don't really know about I have to admit - but I suspect the same sort of self-centered reasoning. More than 200 other countries did - including all the European Union, Japan, Australia, & South Korea. To use an argument that 3 other countries didn't so why should the US (when it was actually the US who refused first I believe) seems ridiculous to me.
If the object of the exercise is to save the planet surely we need a plan? Kyoto is a plan that almost everyone agrees with - not an American plan - a World plan! If America can develop a better one (GWB said they could!) where is it? what is it? when is it going to happen??
Lots of countries have already gone through a lot of pain. No-one said that it's going to be free, or easy.

With respect Kim - you're wrong. The reason Russia, India and China didn't sign on to the Kyoto protocol was because they are exempt.

Yes - the Kyoto protocol NEVER INTENDED to curb pollution controls from those countries. It was instituted in large part as a tax on the American's. And Bush was right not to sign on. The hypocrisy is stunning - after all, greenhouse gas emissions are global in their effects, unlike smog or particulate matter, which are primarily local. Chinese GHG emissions are just as bad as American or Australian. So to exempt those countries indicates a flawed plan right from the start.

 

[chrisch]

Boogie - we disagree about whether your government should have signed Kyoto or not, but you are correct it was wrong from the start and mainly because it exempted China, India and the like. I think it would have set an example if the US had signed up.
Nevertheless the facts remain depressing and the marine ecosystem is the loser, as are we are divers. Three cheers for things like the (US-lead) PADI Project Aware.

I wish that all the diver training agencies would get behind a cross-agency project. Now wouldn't that be something. Any of you top guys out there?

Chris

 

[Boogie711]

Look again, Chris - my government DID sign the Kyoto protocol.

I'm not defending the US because I live there... I'm defending the USA because your allegations against them are way, way off base, and based on rhetoric, not the truth.

 

[cdiver2]

Of cours our waters are geting better we are sending all the manufacturing jobs of to other countrys to pollute another area, but a good deal of the of the manufactured items come to the US consumer. Meanwhile things look good environmet wise back at home, the trouble is the atmosphere is still being polluted at the same rate globaly. If you make a thousand cars at location A or B it is the same amount of pollution.
Mike is right we need to find a way to produce at the same rate with less waste not move the sh*t pile around the world then say it looks good because we can not see it.