Reply #11: They're industrializing and at an extremely fast rate [View All]

[fujiyama]

which has afforded many greater economic opportunities - but at what price?

But in the long run, much of this environmental destruction is irreversible. The main problem is not that China (and India and other developing nations for that matter) are industrializing. It's that the world is simply running out of resources. These countries have a point that the West all went through the same growing pains during the industrial revolution, including environmental calamities, but the world is facing a different set of problems now. Considering the populations of these nations (several times larger than the entire population of Western Europe and the US at the time of industrialization) and threats of global warming, they can't afford to make the mistakes the West made along the way. At the same time, our own arrogance is in believing we can continue to consume at the rate we're at, while being surprised at their own problems they are facing.

This won't be pretty. I expect to see increased rates of cancer, birth defects, and other ailments due to the terrible air quality and the decreasing supply of clean drinking water. I was in India recently and the air quality was terrible. I can only imagine how bad it is in China, which is much worse. Many are already saying that China is an ecological disaster.